After the crash: Families remember firefighters

Published 5:00 am Saturday, August 9, 2008

GRANTS PASS — After his first two weeks on the job as a wildland firefighter, Scott Charlson’s feet were covered with blisters, and he was about ready to look for another way to pay for his last term in college.

“Then he just grew up and decided, ‘I can do this. Other people can do this. I’m not a quitter,’” his father, Rick Charlson, said Friday, his voice swelled by pride and heartbreak. “So he stuck it out. I think now, towards the end, it’s just what you do. He was very responsible.”

Scott Charlson, 25, was one of nine people killed Tuesday when a helicopter crashed shortly after taking off with a load of firefighters heading back to camp in Northern California.

Seven of the dead, including Charlson, and three of the injured were firefighters with Grayback Forestry Inc. The crew was fighting a forest fire on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest outside Redding, Calif.

Grayback President Mike Wheelock returned to the crew’s White City headquarters Friday to talk to some of the more than 140 surviving firefighters with the company he founded in 1979 after getting injured as a smokejumper.

“I told them it’s OK … that we all go through these things differently, we handle them differently,” Wheelock said. “Some are angry. Some may be sad and break down. And some may not feel anything, may be numb, going through post-traumatic syndrome.

“Whatever they (do) it’s OK. It’s OK to talk. It’s OK to cry. It’s OK to be angry. But to talk to somebody.”

Praise for crews

Wheelock praised his crews as “brave, safe, hardworking and professional.”

“I’m proud of these firefighters,” he said.

Wheelock also identified the seventh one of Grayback’s firefighters to die in the crash as Stephen Caleb Renno, 21, of Cave Junction, whose parents had been away and were just notified of his death.

The others are:

• Shawn Blazer, 30, of Medford, grew up in Southern Oregon, loved to hunt and fish, and had found his calling fighting wildfire, his aunt, Carole Holman, told The Oregonian newspaper. “He just couldn’t wait to get back in the action,” she said.

• Matthew Hammer, 23, of Grants Pass, had just gotten married in June after graduating from Corban College in Salem with majors in psychology and business and was in his fourth season fighting fires, his family told the Grants Pass Daily Courier. “It just puts a hole in my heart,” Richard Hammer said of the death of his son. “It was too short,” his wife, Monica, said, breaking into tears. “He was in a hurry.”

• Edrik Gomez, 19, grew up in Coquille, where he was an altar boy, was interested in the outdoors, and had excelled in geology at Coquille High School, teachers told The World newspaper in Coos Bay. He was a student at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he was active in multicultural activities.

• Bryan Rich, 29, of Medford grew up in Grants Pass and had worked in construction, but took a job as a firefighter when home construction slumped, his childhood friend, Gabriel Chesley of Grants Pass, told The Mail Tribune newspaper in Medford. Rich loved the outdoors, especially motorcycles and four-wheeling.

• David Steele, 19, grew up in Ashland and was working as a firefighter to make money to attend Central Oregon Community College in Bend with hopes of becoming an emergency medical technician or firefighter, his father, Paul Steele, told the Medford Mail Tribune. “He knew the risks,” the father said. Steele also played football at Ashland High School and loved rugby.

Another Oregon resident killed in the crash was Carson Helicopters pilot Roark Schwanenberg, 54, of Lostine.

The father of three, he grew up in Klamath Falls, learned to fly helicopters in the Army, and loved to ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles, his wife, Christine told The Oregonian.

‘Family’

Wheelock said it was painful to tell the survivors about the deaths of their fellow firefighters.

“You can see in their faces and demeanor they lost their family member, no different” he said. “These firefighters spend two weeks on assignments together. They sleep, they eat, they do everything together. They tell their stories. They laugh, they get mad together, they’re in harm’s way together. Just like people in the Army. They’re in a war out there.”

Scott Charlson had talked to his parents in Eugene the morning he climbed into a helicopter and flew out for what proved to be four days of hard work defending a fire line in the wilderness.

“We talked every night,” said Rick Charlson, a salesman for a fertilizer and irrigation store. “The morning he left he called at 7:05 or so in the morning. He said what was going to happen. He was excited. He’d never been in a helicopter before. So he was really looking forward to that.

“We said all our ‘I love you’s’ — that was the end of every conversation.”

“He enjoyed being in the woods, looking at stuff that was growing, wildlife, panoramas,” the father said. “He didn’t talk very much about things like that. He was really very private.”

Born in Portland, Scott Charlson played youth hockey growing up. When he was 15 the family moved to Eugene, where he graduated from Lifegate Christian School in a class of eight. There he befriended Tim Murphy, a new kid in town from California, and they became best friends, playing sports, talking about life, politics, and sports.

“He was always the kind of guy who could make you laugh, even if something real serious was happening,” Murphy said.

After working two years in a steel mill, Scott decided to go to Southern Oregon University in Ashland to major in sports journalism.

“I can’t say enough good things about him,” Rick Charlson said. “He was what every parent wants in a kid. He never talked back to us. He never yelled at us. You had disagreements growing up. You want to train your kids right. He was always responsible. He was a great man.”