What it’s like for a truck driver from Maine to fight a massive forest fire in Oregon
An Amity man is part of a Maine Forest Service crew called to help contain a raging 25,000-acre wildfire in Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest.
Chuck Jackman, a wildland firefighter with the Maine Forest Service for over 15 years, is currently serving as the Eastern Oregon incident commander for the 1 Cottage Grove Lane fire, which was caused by a lightning strike, along with firefighters from the Maine Forest Service and New Hampshire Forest Service, according to the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Jackman, who is also a volunteer firefighter in Hodgdon and works as a truck driver for SW Collins in Houlton, has been called out to wildfires more than 30 times in various states, including several times in Alaska, his wife, Angelina Jackman, said Tuesday.
“I couldn’t keep coming out west to help with these major fires if I didn’t have the continued support of my wife and kids and the generosity of my full-time job back home,” he said via text message Tuesday. “SW Collins is very understanding and flexible. They allow me to leave on very short notice to come out here and make a difference.”
The Oregon Line 1 fire is in a mountainous region of the national forest at elevations between 4,000 and 5,000 feet. On this particular trip, Jackman has a Maine Forest Ranger training under him, firefighters cutting down huge trees called fallers, and four support vehicles, Angelina said, adding that the effort is huge.
This fire in the Umpqua National Forest is a little different from his other calls because this time they are working all night long, she said.
“He never really had the chance to do that on a full-time basis,” she said.
Chuck Jackman said they have to work 16-hour night shifts, which are particularly dangerous because they cannot see potential dangers in the rough terrain. In particular, they cannot see huge, silently falling trees, which are the most common cause of injury and death among firefighters.
“A tree can appear as just a shadow and you think it’s fine and just walk past it. The ground shakes a little or there’s a gust of wind and the tree falls over without warning,” Angelina said. “They’re called widowmakers.”
In Oregon, there is an additional threat from mountain lions, Chuck said.
“During one shift, around midnight, we were patrolling a fairly steep section of the fire line and encountered two firefighters from another crew who said they were being chased by a mountain lion,” he said.
Later that night, around 3 a.m., a member of Jackman’s team left the pump they were operating and suddenly came face to face with a mountain lion, he said.
The Lane 1 fire has currently reached 25,250 acres and is 61 percent contained.
According to the Oregon State Forestry Service, thunderstorms sparked new small fires over the weekend.
Firefighters are currently battling embers inside the fire, but the work is laborious and requires firefighters to dig into the soil and smoldering roots underground to prevent the flames from reigniting weeks or months later, officials said.
Jackman’s deployments typically last 14 days on site, plus additional travel time.
“There were times when he was gone for 18 days and I didn’t hear from him,” Angelina said. “Other women connect on Facebook and support each other. I feel like it’s a bit like being a military wife on a short-term basis.”
A few years ago, he would come back for a day or two and be deployed again, she said.
“Whether it was Hurricane Katrina, cleaning up because they needed loggers to clear the roads, then he went to Alaska, then to Oregon and back to Alaska,” she said. “It was harder when our five children were little, but now they’re grown and they admire their father.”
For Jackman, it all started when he was working for a logging company in Wytopitlock and took a first aid course, which led to basic emergency medicine training and a stint working for Houlton Ambulance before becoming a building firefighter.
But he met the late forester Jeremiah Crockett, who taught him how to fight forest fires.
“He is a Maine legend,” Angelina said. “He was an icon of this community.”
Crockett, who was suffering from cancer, left all of his personal equipment to Chuck before he died, she said.
