My father Jack (1922-2014) just loved his projects. And among his favorites was his fire engine. He formed the Sand Hollow Volunteer Rural Fire Department in Umatilla Country, Oregon, before I was born; he was the chief because he owned the truck. He’d attended a two-week fire science program at Purdue in the early 50s, prompting the state publication to opine, “Chief Tillman is a very progressive fire fighter.”
Eventually the war-surplus truck wore out and Dad needed a replacement. Early 70s he got a deal-deal on a well used flatbed that he towed from Walla Walla Grain Growers while I steered, relying on marginal brakes to keep some tension on the tow chain.
When the engine was repaired, Dad outfitted the rig with a 1,200-gallon water tank, pump and hoses plus a siren, light bar and rotating red flasher. Decked out in ranch colors of yellow and white, it was quite the image of agricultural flame suppression. We attended about 25 crop, structure, and vehicle fires over the decades, as I applied stencils commemorating each run.
In the list of Fires I Have Attended, I’d rate the Rugg wheat blaze of August 1975 as the most memorable. We had been finished with harvest for several days and had moved the truck into town. That was regular procedure since it put us in easier range of the more likely trouble spots.
At 7:30 that evening we were sitting on the carport sipping iced tea or whatever was going. Dad with his usual Jack Daniels and 7-Up, when Rollin Suenkel stopped by. As the Western Farmers office manager in Athena, he was concerned with some matter about the elevator. Dad offered him to sit down and have a brew, which he did.
Minutes later Rollin, who was facing east toward the edge of town one block away, saw smoke. Excepting Dad, due to his polio, we all jumped up and ran a few steps on the driveway. Sure enough, a healthy-sized wheat fire was blazing in the middle of Quentin Rugg’s field. It had just started, but there were only a couple of hands on the scene and they had no equipment.
“Let’s go,” Dad said, and we piled on the truck. Rollin jumped on back with my brother Andy and me, and as we started up, Dad shouted to Mother. “Wait by the phone. If Quentin calls for help, tell him we’re on the way!” Then he punched the siren button and the rotating light started to flash.
Despite his infirmity, my dad still could enjoy himself at fifty-three.
Though the fire was probably less than a half-mile from the house, we couldn’t get directly out to the field. Dad drove down Fifth Street, slowed at Fred’s Market, and turned left onto Main heading out of town. Rollin, Andy and I hung on to the handholds, trying to keep our balance as the truck rocked back and forth.
Just past the “Welcome to Athena” sign, Dad turned hard left again and was bouncing across the field toward the fire. The two kids we’d seen before were beating at the edge of the blaze with gunny sacks, apparently forgetting the combine directly in the fire’s path about 300 yards away.
Then the Rugg-Barnett foreman arrived in his pickup. Dad passed close aboard the starboard beam and slowed just long enough to shout, “Never fear, Tillman’s here!” At the same time I was tugging on the tope to start the pump while Rollin opened the big valve at the base of the tank. In seconds we were ready to engage.
The first priority was to cut off the fire’s path toward the parked combine. So Dad swung wide to the east and then cut sharply back to the west, giving us time to set up on the right side of the truck bed. Rollin and Andy were to starboard and I had one of the port-hand hoses at the rear.
Dad was yelling instructions, which we couldn’t hear very well over the truck’s engine, the whine of the pump, and the crackle of the fire. But I knew what he wanted. I got Rollin’s attention and yelled, “Use a heavy stream to knock down the flames.” Rollin nodded and pulled the brim of his green WFA hat down over his eyes. The heat was getting painful as we neared the flames. Both Rollin and Andy opened their nozzles about a quarter turn, producing a strong stream from their hoses. I turned my nozzle about three-quarters for a heavy spray.
Then we were in it. The thick, characteristically black smoke swirled around us, and the flames glowed bright orange. Dad drove close up to the edge of the burning Hyslop wheat to get maximum advantage from the heavy pressure of the water. But he was in the cab; we were exposed to the full effect of the searing heat.
Andy was up front, training his hose at the base of the flames ahead while Rollin followed up and swept along the line as we passed by. I trailed my spray off the starboard quarter and behind, saturating the ground to prevent a subsequent flare-up. It was strategy based on years of experience.
The fire couldn’t have been more than 200 yards long. But you don’t fight wheat fires in a hurry. For results, you have to go slowly, allowing maximum exposure time to beat down the flames and saturate the soil. At first the heat was merely bad, but it became intense and then almost unbearable. I felt certain we’d all receive blisters. And in the smoke it was difficult to tell how much progress we were making. Wouldn’t we ever break into the clear?
I looked up forward. Andy and Rollin were both stooped, frequently turning their faces from the flames. I swung my nozzle in their direction, allowing the spray to whip over them. Then I had to turn around myself. With less pressure to handle, I could hold the hose with one hand and partially shield my face with the other arm.
Then we were out of it. Andy shut off his nozzle while Rollin and I continued spraying toward the rear. We all breathed deeply in the fresh air. Dad turned right this time, heading to the rear of the fire. We were glad of that; the heat wouldn’t be as bad.
This time we all sprayed the base of the fire, moistening the unburned wheat. There was no point fighting the flames themselves from this side, since whatever was beyond the burned line in front of us was already destroyed. The concern here was to deluge the blackened earth and surviving wheat to retard the fire’s progress if the wind shifted.
Then Dad shouted that he was going round the front again. I don’t know if Rollin or Andy had any thoughts on the subject, but I almost said aloud, “Oh, no!”
Our first pass had largely checked the fire’s progress but it was still burning wildly within its borders. Again we passed close alongside and were exposed to the searing, radiating heat. The three of us aimed our hoses at the base of the flames again, waving the streams of water back and forth. For a moment in the smoke and spray I had the weird illusion that we were hacking down flames with scythes of water. We were harvesting fire instead of grain.
As before, it was a long, uncomfortable trip down the face of the blaze. The bright early evening sunlight was mottled and obscured by the dense, black smoke, and it was another week of hours before we were again clear of the wretched heat.
By now help had arrived. Another rig was on the scene—one of Johns-Smith-and Beamer’s, I thought, from the other side of town. And one of the kids who’d been flailing the fire with a gunnysack was plowing the circumference of the burned area, turning up dry dirt in the path of the flames.
In a few more minutes the last of the blaze was out, and we surveyed the aftermath of every wheat fire. The blackened, scorched, over-cooked heads and charred earth. The smell of a huge outdoor oven. Rows of unburned grain trampled beneath the wheels of tractors, fire trucks and pickups. Rollin took off his soot-grimed hat and wiped his reddened face. “Well, that’s not so bad,” he said in his Midwest accent. “Only about six acres.”
Andy confessed that he did not want to fight another fire like that one again soon.
We began coiling up the hoses, securing them to the truck bed. Water dripped everywhere. And with the pump shut off, the evening was strangely quiet.
The foreman drove up once more, his face and glasses covered with dust and soot. He leaned out the window, “Thank you, boys, until you’re better paid.”
“No charge,” Dad replied.
It had been a great fire.
