Two Marion County firefighters traveling to help contain an eastern Oregon wildfire will be heading back home after sustaining injuries in a vehicle crash early Wednesday near Baker City.
Both are being evaluated at a hospital in Baker City after the brush truck they were driving rolled on State Highway 86, Battalion Chief Mark Bjorkland said.
Chief Kyle McMann traveled to Baker City Wednesday morning “to make sure our guys are O.K.” and bring them home, Bjorkland said.
The team left around 2 a.m. Wednesday as part of a larger Clackamas County task force to assist on the rapidly-growing Town Gulch Fire burning in Baker County, Bjorkland said.
The truck they were driving rolled, apparently after catching on gravel and going down an embankment on the highway between Baker City and Richland, Bjorkland said. The firefighters weren’t seriously injured and were able to extricate themselves from the vehicle.
Fire district leaders received word of the crash around 9 a.m. Wednesday morning. Bjorkland said he wasn’t sure what time the firefighters crashed.
Gov. Tina Kotek invoked the emergency conflagration act Tuesday, allowing the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office to mobilize help from fire agencies around the state to protect structures. The fire grew to about 10,000 acres by Tuesday night, the U.S. Forest Service said.
With Oregon seeing an early and devastating wildfire season, Marion County crews have been called out to assist on several blazes in eastern and central Oregon. Currently, the agency has four firefighters who were deployed this week to the Elk Lane Fire outside Madras.
“It’s been a wild year,” Bjorkland said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
