Sheridan Fire District thanks community

The Sheridan Fire District, in appreciation of the community's response to the Willamina Creek fire, issued the following statement today:

As reports of the fire on Willamina Creek were coming in we saw an amazing response from the communities of the West Valley. Our local fire agencies sent over sixty firefighters up to Willamina Creek to help fight the fire along with another sixty to seventy crew firefighters from the Oregon Department of Forestry, National Forest Service and private wildland crews. Providing those crews with nourishment becomes essential, especially during extended incidents like one we were facing so help provided by the community makes a huge difference and can even help to improve the outcome.

It was almost immediately that we saw people asking on Facebook how they could help and had a group of people in Willamina that started organizing the making of sandwiches, collecting of other food and drink supplies and then coordinating with others to have it delivered up to the fire.

At about the same time family members and friends of Sheridan’s Firefighters started showing up to the main station to help gather supplies and began to make sandwiches as well. It didn’t take long for the two groups to make contact with each other and begin coordinating their trips to reduce the traffic on the roads up to the scene.

While not everybody could donate their time to help with the efforts several community members generously dropped off supplies for the cause. We had people dropping off fresh fruit, loaves of bread, granola bars, cases of water, sandwich meat, peanut butter and many more needed supplies. We also had local business who worked with us to provide needed supplies. We especially want to thank Willamina and Sheridan Select Markets, Center Markets of Sheridan and Willamina, Sheridan Subway and the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde for their generous donations.

We also would like to thank the fire crews that came in to staff the various stations across the county while we were dealing with this large scale incident.

Without the community and our surrounding agencies on these large incidents the jobs of the firefighters and other public service workers would be much harder.