Trevor (left) and Steve Rhea both went to the McKenzie
River fire.
50¢
VOL. 139
NO. 40
8 Pages
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon
Father and son answer fire call
Steve and Trevor Rhea fight the large Holiday Farm Fire together
By David Sykes
When the call came
for help fighting the mas-
sive forest fires burning
in the Willamette Valley
this summer, one Heppner
family was certainly af-
fected. Steve and Trevor
Rhea, father and son, an-
swered the call and together
went to battle the 173,000-
acre Holiday Farm Fire on
the McKenzie River near
Springfield.
While not on the same
crew, the two were in the
general area at the same
time, just doing different
jobs. Trevor, a former log-
ger with experience oper-
ating equipment, manned
a skidder, while his dad,
Steve, commanded a team
of men with tankers, pump-
ers and other firefighting
equipment. Both described
the fire as massive devasta-
tion and nothing like they
had seen before.
Although Trevor has
been fighting wildland and
forest fires since he was
eighteen years old and been
a long-time member of the
Heppner Fire Department
responding to many home
fires and auto accidents,
this fire was a scale he had
not seen before. “I’ve been
to fires and car wrecks and
that’s just one little scene,”
Trevor says. “But here you
are talking thousands of
people and hundreds of
houses. I have not seen
anything of that magnitude
before. I have never been
to war, but it looked like a
bomb went off,” he said of
the devastation.
The extremely high
winds through the area also
made the fire act strangely,
they both agreed. Trevor
said there were 60-70 mph
winds which caused the
fire to jump around a lot.
He said in one campground
area he was working; the
fire went through so fast
it didn’t even melt a trash
can liner. “There was a
campground there. You
could tell where the camp
Morrow County Health
District Board Chair John
Murray announced at the
September 28 board meet-
ing in Boardman Monday
night that the district is in
the process of selecting
a new CEO and expects
to announce the selected
candidate in approximately
seven to 10 days. Current
CEO Bob Houser previous-
ly announced his upcoming
retirement and has indicat-
ed that he plans to retire by
December.
The board brought
three candidates and their
“significant others” to Hep-
pner for interviews Monday
and a tour of MCHD facili-
ties in Heppner, Irrigon and
Ione on Tuesday.
A l s o a t M o n d a y ’s
meeting a representative
of the district’s account-
ing firm, Wipfli, was in
attendance to present the
district’s yearly audit re-
port ending June 30 which
showed both revenues and
expenses up from last year.
Wipfli noted that salaries
and wages increased by
A common site was just the stone fireplace left from a
burned-out home.
Widespread devastation
host was because a golf
cart melted to the ground.
They got out of there as
fast as they could. It was
going through there so fast
in some places it didn’t
even burn the leaves on the
bushes, but would then burn
a house not far away,” he re-
lates. “Some places burned
everything and other places
there was spot burning,”
he says.
One incident that
brought home to Trevor the
immensity of the fires they
were facing was when “ca-
daver teams” were brought
in with dogs to search for
victims. He said he lifted
trees and debris up with his
equipment while the dogs
and teams worked the area.
They did not find any bod-
ies but did find evidence of
people who barely escaped
with their lives. Trevor said
there were a lot of aban-
doned vehicles on the high-
way. “There was so much
smoke they couldn’t see,
and they probably jumped
out and ran for the river.”
He says several people
jumped in the river and they
even found a backpack with
a phone with solar pad in
it left behind by a person
going into the river to es-
cape the flames. He says
one guy jumped in the river
swam down to town and
went up to the Blue River
High School football field
where a bunch of people
from town, who couldn’t
get out in time, just huddled
there until the fire passed
over. The only thing left
standing in the town was the
high school and a couple of
houses, he says.
Meanwhile nearby,
Trevor’s dad Steve was
commanding a firefight-
ing crew with equipment.
“Back in Heppner I had
been receiving texts for
two weeks from the dis-
trict chief asking me to go
to the fires,” Steve says of
how he ended up there. He
remembers how smoky it
was in Heppner, and then
his wife Molly said, “I
think you need to go.” “So,
I volunteered.” However,
to begin with he was a task
force leader without equip-
ment, until he arrived in
Springfield at the fire com-
mand center. Once there
he was put in charge of a
crew of five “resources”
including engines, pumpers
and a tanker. He says the
crew was assembled from
all over the state with the
equipment coming from
such diverse locations as
La Grande, Warrenton, Phi-
lomath and Seaside. “The
guys were good and pro-
fessional and there to help
anyway they could,” Steve
relates.
Although Steve has
been fighting wildland and
forest fires for quite some
time, he, like Trevor, said
this one was different. “I
have been on large fires
in the past with multiple
burned homes. I had been
around those kinds of fires,”
he says. “What got to me on
this one was when they told
me there were 100 to 140
people missing. That was
a whole different thing for
me. Never been in that kind
of thing where we were go-
ing in looking for bodies,”
he says.
Steve says on first ar-
riving he was told a second
task force scheduled to
join them was diverted to
another fire, leaving them
shorthanded. He spent the
night making several three-
hour round trips on the fire
line checking on his guys
and didn’t get to sleep until
7 a.m. They got four hours
of sleep and then went back
out on the fire line; he says
of the work load. “The first
couple of days were a little
rough.” He says two fire
chaplains came to check
on the crews and also go
through the burned-out
structures looking through
the ashes for remains.
Steve relates some of
the stranger things he saw
in a fire of this size with the
large number of destroyed
homes. “I was checking on
a structure that had been
missed by about foot from
a downed cedar tree. The
structure was still standing
and I looked down and there
were two tricycles there. I
thought to myself, ‘Man, I
hope they got out.’” Steve
said he walked further
around the house and saw
an Infinity 380SE Mercedes
Benz sitting at the corner of
the house. There were no
burn spots and no damage,
and right next to it was an
F150 pickup burned com-
pletely to the ground. Then
50 yards away was a 3,000
square foot home burned
completely to the ground.
As more evidence of
the randomness of the fire,
he said in a shared parking
area of several homes there
were three fifth wheel RVs
completely burned to the
17 percent and employee
benefits increased by 14
percent. They also noted
that non-operating revenue
for the district increased by
$201,000 due to increased
property tax revenues and
grant revenue.
Chief Nursing Officer
Jamie Houck presented a
proposal to the board for
a new bedside monitoring
system for Pioneer Memo-
rial Hospital. “As we began
preparing for the possible
COVID-19 surge, it became
apparent that the current
bedside monitoring system
we have would need up-
graded to provide safe pa-
tient care where dedicated
patient equipment is need.”
She said, “Each room needs
to have its own bedside
monitor which would al-
low for patient dedicat-
ed equipment to prevent
cross contamination and
increase infection control
measures.” Houck said the
monitors are expected to
last around 10 years with a
five-year warranty, but she
is in the process of trying
to negotiate a seven-year
warranty. Staff training on
the system is included in the
purchase price.
The board approved
the low bid proposal from
Mindray in Mahwah, New
Jersey, for the bedside mon-
itoring system at $399,834,
plus $10,000 for a Cen-
triq Interface for a total of
$409,834.65 with expenses
to be covered with COVID
funds. Another bid, at
$438,359, plus $10,000 for
the Centriq Interface from
Nihon Kohden in Irvine,
CA, was also received.
In other business,
Houser reported the fol-
lowing:
-the district has hired
Jenna O’Brien as an EMT
intermediate who is close
to becoming a paramedic;
-current employee Kris
Jones has been named chief
operating officer and will
be doing “double duty”
until a new clinic director
is hired.
-Pioneer Memorial
Hospital has used COVID
grants to purchase 12 IV
pumps at a cost of $20,276.
He said the pumps had to be
programmed by their phar-
macist and COVID funds
were also used to pay for
the extra hours needed for
the pharmacist to program
the pumps.
-COVID funds in the
amount of $17,268.71 will
also be used to update/re-
Half burned flag still flies.
MCHD to announce new CEO soon
-See NEW CEO/PAGE
THREE
ground, and just beyond
that another home with
cedar siding and shake
roof completely untouched.
“Sometimes there was just
no rhyme nor reason,” he
says of the burning pattern.
Asked if he met any of
the local people who lived
in the area, Steve relates
how he met one guy named
Dave, who lived in a home
on an island in the river,
along with several others.
“I drove in there and saw a
hose bigger than a garden
hose. Then a guy walked
out of the ashes. He had
curly hair and had ash all
over him. He looked like
Art Garfunkel,” Steve re-
called. He said the man
told him he stayed through
the whole fire, squirting
water on the homes. “He
saved every house on that
island.” Steve said he got to
be friends with Dave, who
told him about his experi-
ences with the fire. Later
Dave got pulled over by
the cops for riding his lawn
mower down to the market.
“I talked to the cop and said
give him a break, he saved
his neighbors’ houses, six or
eight of them. Let him be,”
Steve recalls.
Another 82-year-old
homeowner with three cats
had been sheltering on the
football field and told Steve
he awoke in the middle
of the night to see flames
outside his home. The man
jumped up, grabbed his cats
and some clothes and ran
for his truck. Racing down
the highway the man said
he looked in his rear-view
mirror to see his home on
fire. A very close call.
Another encounter with
local people was emotional
for the long-time firefighter.
He said he and his crew
came down the road in a
fire rig and came upon a
line of people waiting to get
back into the area to check
on their property. “We had
our lights on when we got
down to the roadblock.
All these people got out of
their cars and they started
cheering, applauding and
waving the flag at us,” he
says. “That was something.
I thought, man we aren’t
heroes, we’re just trying to
do our job.” Later he says
they pulled into Troutdale
and went through a drive
through to get some food,
when he got to the window
to pay, they told him the
people in the car in front
had picked up the tab for
his dinner. “That’s pretty
cool,” he said. But he did
recall how other fire fighters
had a much tougher time. A
fire crew from the McKen-
zie River District not only
lost their fire station to the
fire, but every fire fighter’s
home burned down while
they were fighting the fire.
Being on the fire line
with your son also was on
Steve’s mind. “There came
over the radio a report of a
35-year-old logger that had
been hit in the head by a tree
down where Trevor was
working,” Steve recalls. “I
had to go. I drove down to
where his crew was, and of
course, I was worried.” He
says he asked the crew boss
if Trevor Rhea (who is also
35) was okay. “Trevor? Yea
he’s fine I saw him a couple
of minutes ago right down
there,” Steve was told.
And what about wife
and mother, Molly Rhea?
What does she think about
having both her son and
husband on a large danger-
ous fire at the same time?
Molly says she is used to
having them out on fires,
as Trevor started going
when he was just 18 years
old. “It’s not unusual not
to hear from him for days
at a time when he is out
of cell range,” she says of
Steve, who goes out every
summer. “I was more ner-
vous of Trevor on this one
because of the logging he
was doing.” Molly said she
tries not to watch the local
news about the fires while
her guys are out there, but
sometimes she does see
the reports. “Watching the
footage every night is not
helpful,” she says. But be-
ing a firefighter’s wife, she
has gotten used to it. “He
keeps a bag packed and can
be gone pretty quickly. He
meets guys from all over the
world doing this and still
communicates with some
of them,” she says.
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