COMMUNITY
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2020
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
Fire Prevention
Week Oct. 4-10
BROWN
Continued from Page 1A
Kathy Aney/EO Media Group, File
Bulldogger Jesse Brown wrestles his steer to the ground to clinch the steer wrestling
title at the 2019 Pendleton Round-Up. Brown’s time in the fi nal round, 3.7 seconds, set
a new record for the prestigious rodeo.
Trading the Vegas Strip
for the Lone Star State isn’t
the most signifi cant change,
though, Brown said.
Globe Life Field is an out-
door baseball stadium.
The Thomas & Mack Cen-
ter is an indoor basketball
arena.
More importantly for a
steer wrestler, who leaps from
a horse galloping at more
than 25 mph, the two venues
are much different in size and
layout.
Brown said the set up in
Texas is much different from
most rodeos, including the
location of the chutes where
competitors start.
He said he’ll set up his
practice arena in Baker City
with dimensions as close as
possible to those in Arlington.
Not that Brown is com-
plaining about missing out on
glittering Vegas.
“I don’t care where it is
— I’m just glad to be in the
Finals,” he said.
A little more than 4
months ago Brown and his
fellow cowboys could hardly
be confi dent there even would
be a National Finals.
Many large rodeos were
canceled this spring due to
the pandemic.
Brown didn’t return to the
rodeo circuit until late May.
Over the next 4 months he
competed in more than 60
rodeos, most of them smaller
events in smaller towns —
and with correspondingly
more modest cash purses —
than Brown is used to.
But he enjoyed his summer
of road trips to towns in Iowa
and Nebraska, to name two
states Brown never expected
to see.
“I was actually surprised at
how many events there were,”
he said. “We saw a lot of coun-
try. It was cool. Those small
towns really come together to
put on a rodeo.”
Brown said spectators
weren’t allowed at some
rodeos. But other events, he
said, seemed normal. Well,
except for having to have his
temperature checked before
he was allowed to compete.
(Brown said he hasn’t had
to be tested for COVID-19,
however.)
Throughout the summer
Brown was in strong conten-
tion to fi nish in the top 15
and secure his berth in the
National Finals.
He climbed as high as 12th
in the standings.
With a month or so left in
the season, Brown was in
17th place.
“From 10th to 18th was
really tight, so it came down
to the last two weeks,” Brown
said. “I knew I pretty much
had to win money every-
where.”
By qualifying for the
National Finals, Brown has
achieved his second career
milestone in as many years.
In September 2019 he set
the steer wrestling record, 3.7
seconds, during the Pendleton
Round-Up, Oregon’s most
revered rodeo.
FIREFIGHTERS
Continued from Page 1A
Snodgrass, 28, grew up near Gresh-
am, just a dozen or so miles from Estaca-
da. Many of his high school friends had
to evacuate or were on alert.
But Snodgrass also lived in Southern
California for 7 years, attending college
and working for a private ambulance
company, before he moved to Baker City
almost 3 years ago.
Wildfi res destroy homes and some-
times entire neighborhoods most years
in Southern California.
“But I never would have anticipated
seeing that in my hometown,” Snodgrass
said.
Cochran, who lives in Baker City, also
had a personal connection to the fi res.
He used to live in McMinnville, south-
west of Portland, and he has friends in
Estacada.
Cochran, 64, said that during his
3fi years with the Baker Rural Fire
District, he has dealt with haystack fi res
and other relatively small fi res.
What he saw while working on the
Riverside fi re near Estacada was alto-
gether different.
“It was my fi rst time on anything like
that,” Cochran said.
One aspect of the experience that
stands out for Cochran was the diffi culty
in extinguishing fi res started by embers
landing on creosote-laden railroad ties
that many residents use for landscaping.
“Some people have a lot of these on
their property,” Cochran said.
Once fi re started in one of the ties,
fi refi ghters had to chop the dense wood
into pieces to get at the fi re inside, he
said.
Lynch, Snodgrass and Cochran left
Baker City about 1:30 p.m. on Thursday,
Sept. 10.
They went in The Beast.
That’s the nickname Baker City fi re-
fi ghters bestowed on the 2003 Freight-
liner fi re truck the city acquired in 2018.
The truck, which formerly was part
of the fi refi ghting fl eet of the Oregon
Department of Forestry, is an imposing
vehicle. It has four-wheel drive and its
tires are taller than most kindergart-
ners.
Lynch, who drove The Beast as the
trio left Baker City, said he wondered
how poorly suited the massive truck
would be for freeway travel.
He was pleasantly surprised.
“Those mudslinging tires wander a
big if you’re in those semi-truck ruts in
the right lane, but it actually did way
better than I expected,” Lynch said.
The group arrived at Estacada around
7:30 p.m. that evening. Lynch said the
fi re offi cial who briefed them on the situ-
ation and then assigned them to a duty
area had been working almost without a
break for 3 straight days.
“He looked spent,” Lynch said.
Preventing fi res in the kitchen, the leading cause of
home fi res, is the focus of this year’s Fire Prevention
Week sponsored by the National Fire Protection As-
sociation.
The Baker County Interagency Fire Prevention
Team, which consists of local, state and federal fi re
agencies, is also promoting this year’s event, which runs
Oct. 4-10.
“Cooking fi res can be prevented,” said Gary Timm,
Baker County Emergency Management Fire Division
manager. “Staying in the kitchen and monitoring the
stove top will keep families safe from a kitchen fi re.”
According to National Fire Protection Association,
cooking is the leading cause of home fi res and home
fi re injuries in the United States. Almost half (44%) of
reported home fi res started in the kitchen. Two-thirds
(66%) of home cooking fi res start with the ignition of
food or other cooking materials.
To learn more about Fire Prevention Week and cook-
ing fi re prevention, visit www.fpw.org.
Canned food drive to support fi re victims
Fire departments and protection districts across
Baker County are collecting nonperishable food dur-
ing National Fire Prevention Week. Donations will be
delivered to families in western Oregon who lost their
homes and were otherwise affected by the wildfi res in
September. Donations can be dropped off at the Baker
City Fire Department, 1616 Second St., or any city hall
in the county from Oct. 4 to Oct. 10.
LEARNING
of years of collaborative
work in the Baker area,
Continued from Page 1A
and will be a tremen-
The Baker Early
dous resource for young
Learning Center has four families,” Angela Lattin,
preschool classrooms in
BELC director, stated in
the remodeled school
the release.
building’s north wing of
Sid Johnson & Co.
the ground fl oor. There are remodeled about 25,000
fi ve kindergarten class-
square feet of the
rooms in the building’s
40,000-square-foot build-
south wing.
ing.
When students return
Money to pay for the
to in-person classes, those $2.3 million Baker Early
attending kindergarten at Learning Center improve-
Brooklyn Primary School ments came from several
will move to the early
sources, including the
learning center. Preschool Baker School District, the
students are tentatively
state Student Investment
scheduled to begin classes Act, Preschool Promise
in the building on Nov. 2. program, and multiple
“The BELC is a result
private grants.
Virginia Buchfinck
turning 101 on Oct. 10
Contributed Photo
Andrew Snodgrass, right, of the Baker City Fire Department, with his father,
Michael Snodgrass, a fi refi ghter with the Gresham Fire Department, in front
of “The Beast,” the Baker City fi re truck Snodgrass helped crew.
Lynch, Snodgrass and Cochran
worked through the night, ending their
shift around 8 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 11.
Lynch said they extinguished one ma-
jor fl are-up that fi rst night, which they
spent near the intersection of Highways
224 and 211, close to the Clackamas
River.
Although The Beast can haul around
500 gallons of water, Lynch said the
Baker County trio was part of a task
force that included a water tender, so
the truck had a nearly unlimited water
supply.
Its pumps can push 500 gallons per
minute through its network of hose
nozzles.
Lynch, Cochran and Snodgrass all
emphasized the diffi culty of fi ghting
fi res on nights when the combination of
cloying wildfi re smoke, later exacerbated
by plain old pea soup fog, didn’t so much
reduce visibility as eliminate it.
“You couldn’t see 10 feet in front of
you,” Lynch said. “It was amazing how
thick it was.”
Cochran: “I couldn’t even tell where I
was some of the time.”
Snodgrass’ personal ties weren’t lim-
ited to his having grown up nearby.
His parents, Michael and Karie Snod-
grass, live near Gresham. And Michael
is a fi refi ghter with the Gresham Fire
Department.
For one shift, Snodgrass, Cochran and
Lynch ended up working right next to
the task force that Michael Snodgrass
was a member of.
“It was super cool that we were able to
experience fi re camp together, and work
almost side by side,” Andrew Snodgrass
said.
The Baker City crew was even able to
send a shopping list to Karie Snodgrass.
She brought the items — protein-rich
snacks, for instance — to the fi re camp.
Cochran said he was “amazed” at how
many people volunteered to help people
displaced by the fi re, and to support the
hundreds of fi refi ghters.
“People really stepped up to the plate,”
he said.
He was especially touched by the
many residents, some of whom had lost
their homes, who fi lled coolers with
drinks and snacks and set them out for
fi refi ghters.
“They didn’t have to do that but they
did that,” Cochran said. “Just great
people. Some of them lost everything
they owned, literally everything. That
was heart-wrenching.”
All three of the Baker City fi refi ghters
said they were glad they had a chance to
help people during the most catastrophic
wildfi res in Oregon history.
Lynch said he will always remember
the fi refi ghters who arrived from across
the state to help fi ght the Cornet-Windy
Ridge fi re that burned 104,000 acres
south of Baker City in August 2015.
That lightning-sparked blaze, the big-
gest in the county’s history, destroyed
one home in Stices Gulch.
He said it was an easy decision to go
west.
“We’ve got to go help our fellow Orego-
nians,” said Lynch, who grew up in The
Dalles. “We got to repay our debt is the
way I look at it.”
Snodgrass, whose parents were in a
Level 2 evacuation status for a time (be
prepared to leave), said the situation
was unprecedented.
“No one in the state of Oregon has
experienced fi re behavior like what was
going on,” he said.
Cochran said he was happy to help
people who had suffered losses he could
scarcely imagine.
“It was devastating, it really was, to
see people lose their homes,” he said.
“I’m glad to be helpful. I was glad to be
there.”
Longtime Baker City resident Virginia
Buchfi nck will celebrate her 101st birth-
day on Oct. 10.
Buchfi nck has been active in the com-
munity since moving here in 1949 with
her husband, Erhardt.
Virginia worked with the American Red Buchfi nck
Cross for many years, she was a part of
many other community endeavors, and she continues to
be active in the First Lutheran Church.
Virginia was born on Oct. 10, 1919, at West Linn.
Birthday greetings and best wishes can be sent to
Virginia at P.O. Box 771, Baker City, OR 97814.
Program targets
youth tobacco sales
The Baker County Safe
Communities Coalition
will conduct its Rewards
and Reminders program,
which is designed to re-
duce the sale of tobacco to
youth, during October.
A team of volunteers,
including youth ages 14-17
and adults, visit retail out-
lets where the youth asks
to buy a tobacco product. If
the clerk agrees to sell the
product, the youth refuses
the purchase and gives
the clerk a letter with a
reminder that state law
requires retailers to verify
a buyer’s age before selling
tobacco.
The program is not
punitive.
If the clerk asks for
identifi cation and then
refuses to sell because the
person is under 21 (the
legal age to buy tobacco
in Oregon increased from
18 to 21 in 2018; the
same change happened
nationwide in 2020), the
youth will give the clerk a
reward, such as a gift cer-
tifi cate to a local business.
Youth volunteers will
wear masks and observe
social distancing during
these compliance checks.
More information about
the program is available
by calling Ray Day, coordi-
nator, at 541-523-8215.
Steel on the inside where it matters most.
Shops
Garages
Commercial
Industrial
www.WSBNW.com
855 • 668 • 7211
Sandy, OR
S199249-1
And so Brown had to wait.
And watch as his competi-
tors — and, he emphasizes,
his friends — wrestled their
fi nal steers.
Dirk Tavenner of Rigby,
Idaho, was competing in, of
all places, New Jersey.
Shayde Etherton of Bor-
den, Indiana, was back in
Rapid City.
“I was more nervous watch-
ing them than anything else,”
Brown said. “Those last two
days were everything. Every
dollar counts.”
His win at Rapid City
ended up being enough.
Brown fi nished 15th, $1,560
ahead of Tavenner in 16th
place.
Etherton was 17th, another
$978 back.
“It was tough — I’m friends
with all those guys,” Brown
said.
But feeling badly for his
buddies didn’t diminish
Brown’s excitement at real-
izing his dream.
After competing in more
than 60 rodeos over the past
4 months, after living out of a
horse trailer and returning to
Baker City barely long enough
to wash his clothes, Brown
had qualifi ed for the ultimate
competition.
But of course this being
2020, the year of the corona-
virus pandemic, that competi-
tion is nothing like normal.
The National Finals, sched-
uled for Dec. 3-12, won’t take
place in the traditional venue,
the Thomas & Mack Center
arena in Las Vegas.
Due to the pandemic, the ro-
deo has been moved to Globe
Life Field in Arlington, Texas.