Dennis Schlies worked on September 7 at night for METCOM 911, the office that handles emergency calls to Santiam Canyon, so he knew it.
She knew it before her boss reported the news on the phone and before a colleague’s husband shot the rubble.
He learned this when he made one of the first calls about a chimney site that spreads rapidly through falling force lines near the former Gate Elementary School, the site of a fire place command post in Beachie Creek.
Beachie Creek Fire: Why didn’t all utilities cut the force in Santiam Canyon before the winds changed the lines?
The space he and his wife Denise have shared for almost 20 years less than 3 kilometers from the school.
I may live without her, but without her.
Dennis didn’t know where he was. But he still controlled directing resources to several new fires and advising his neighbors in the canyon how to get out alive.
You can expect your wife to have had time to evacuate.
Colleague dispatchers may simply not believe they are in position while remaining on target during a 12-hour shift, especially such a grumpy one.
Again, they have nothing less than the kind they know as the “voice of the cannon. “
Dennis has been a committed dispatcher in the domain for 41 years, which is an anomaly in a race in which exhaustion contributes to superior rotation.
Listening to the worst moments in people’s lives can be stressful and, for Dennis, it can be personal.
There are times when he is the voice at the other end of the call.
Survive the fire: a guy takes refuge in the river, pushing the embers with a plastic chair.
Dennis is a permanent resident of the canyon, a domain where widespread errors are rare. A tornado swept through Aumsville 10 years ago last December, damaging 50 homes, but no one lost their lives.
Four other people were shown dead at the Beachie Creek chimney site and about 470 houses were destroyed. Lionshead’s chimney site further east destroyed another 264 houses.
Dennis and Denise have lost everything, but are grateful to have a roof over their heads, even though a small room on the floor of a Salem hotel is far from their five-bedroom, 4,168-square-foot home on 23 quiet acres in Gates. .
“You can’t be depressed about it. Life goes on,” Dennis said, having breakfast at Elmer’s, turning to his wife and crying. “We are alive. We have our animals. “
They have been married for over 33 years and are adorable with their variety of nicknames and shirts. The matched shirts are their thing, for no reason because, and they had about 40 in all colors and styles.
They already have a new collection in the days after the fire, modeling earth-colored T-shirts of theirs burned for an interview with the Statesman Journal.
They met in December 1986, La Dennis’ mother had tried to install them and Denise was his hairdresser. When her son needed a haircut, she passed it on to Denise.
He did, and immediately clicked, hurried before he could finish the cut because he was called to a fire. Dennis was a long-time volunteer firefighter for Stayton, Aumsville and Gates.
The subject of marriage came here on his first date. They were divorced.
Less than two months later, on Valentine’s Day, they married in Reno, Nevada, through an Elvis impersonator with a gleaming white monkey.
Their $259 wedding package included a room and a video, which have not dusted off in years. They wish they could look at it now, but it melted through the rubble.
“Oh, well, ” Dennis, “at least we have the memories. “
Dennis will never do that Monday night shift at METCOM. You’ve noticed and heard crazy things in your career, yet nothing may have prepared you for that night.
With hurricane-force winds in the forecast, the medium has predicted a buildup of calls.
MetCOM’s service domain includes 36 rural communities in Marion County and parts of Linn and Clackamas counties. The call center provides shipping to seven law enforcement agencies, 17 chimney districts, and two personal ambulance districts.
Seven dispatchers arrived at 7 o’clock p. m. de same old 3 or four. CEO Mark Spross later said that even if he had 10 more dispatchers in the business, they may not have kept up with the volume of calls, 423% more than usual.
Oregon wildfireplaces: how beachie Creek’s small fireplace exploded and devastated Santiam Canyon
Perhaps an hour after the start of the shift, Dennis took this call to report on a grass and shrub fireplace at Fir Grove Lane SE in Mehama. Several calls for the same incident came at the same time.
“You know when something bad happens,” he said, describing how the red dots appear on the phone mapping screen of the computer-aided dispatch (CAO) formula.
It was thought to be a high-risk lawn fire, with homes and businesses at risk, so several sets were shipped. This is just the beginning of what would turn into a raging hell that would almost wipe out entire communities.
Dennis grew up in Stayton before he was a firefighter. His neighbor was a volunteer firefighter.
Whenever the city alarm sounded, Dennis rode his Western Flyer-style green motorcycle with a white banana seat and hit as much as firefighters at the scene, who reassembled the hose after the call.
The branch gave him a soft red battery for his bike.
He became a volunteer firefighter student at the age of 16, too young to officially get out in the van, handled the radio to lose someone else, came to the distribution and became addicted.
In 1979, he hired him as a Dispatcher for Stayton, working in a box in the police department. There is a small window with bars and a telephone. Denise said she had a wonderful picture of him in this room on this phone, at least her. Made.
They left to live off what they lost or the fact that they had just installed a new roof and paid for their John Deere tractor.
A collection of spun glass that Denise started almost 50 years ago to customize the house. In the billiard room, Dennis proudly showed the commemorative punch he was given when he retired as a firefighter in 2010.
Outaspect, they had a 2001 Dodge van with 95,000 miles, a wheelchair van, a trailer with harness, a horse trailer and a Rhino look through the look.
Denise is equally unhappy with Stargazer’s 15 peonies and 22 Asian lilies around the bridge she’s been worried about for 20 years.
They also lost outbuildings, adding a century-old barn. Inside, a pair of black chairs adorned with silver conchos. They had horses and paraded with the Santiam Grange. Dennis made a basket that can be attached to a chair so your dog can just ride.
They may only have children. His horses and dogs were his children.
That same day, before going to work, Dennis and his wife explained how to pack their bags.
He would have liked them to have acted, especially after receiving calls on a fireplace at the foot of Potato Hill, not far from Gates Bridge East, on the way home.
Dennis spoke temporarily on the radio with one of the deputy bosses of the chimneys who reported that no house or structure was threatened, but within minutes, they all were.
Downed power lines at old school number one triggered a fire place at the fire place camp. When firefighters were evacuated, the flames spread to Davis Airport. Fire fighting appliances parked there, adding part of a dozen helicopters and their fuel trucks.
Additional kits have been shipped to help on site. Silverton, Turner and Jefferson trucks started screaming into the canyon.
Dennis and Denise run a foster home since 2004, have opened their homes and hearts to about 25 citizens over the years, some stayed with them for a week, others stayed for years, like Aunt Shirley.
Shirley Hoover is not her aunt, but she has lived with them for more than seven years. She’s the only resident in her custody lately. They are allowed five adults, but are gradually approaching retirement.
“We have treated citizens as a family,” Dennis said. ” We call them aunt, uncle, grandfather. “
Brandi Johnson, a METCOM dispatcher who counts on GoFundMe for her colleague, described Dennis as a phenomenal person.
“There are a lot of other people I say great,” Johnson said, “but a total ton of firefighters, police, and ambulances would, too. “
“It has been delivered to this network for years. The network is mobilizing for him. “
By Friday afternoon, another 119 people had donated more than $ 10,000 to the fund, making Dennis feel a bit uncomfortable. He is a proud guy who would give to others instead of receiving a gift. He recently gave Johnson a hundred hours of sick leave while she was on sick leave.
Dennis and Denise feel privileged to have jobs, insurance and cash in the bank, something other people displaced by wildfires might not have.
They already have to pay and give everything they don’t want to a non-profit organization that supports 911 dispatchers in times of crisis.
Back at METCOM, where dispatchers in front of a minimum of six monitors, Dennis and his colleagues rushed to answer the avalanche of calls.
His workstation lit up as he had noticed before. There were so many things going on and so few resources. They transferred resources from one incident to another.
The seriousness of the stage has worsened when the 911 call center in Woodburn lost contact with its Detroit chain. The Lionshead fire swept down there at the same time.
“So many things are happening. There were so many fires and so few resources,” Dennis said.
The force came out at home around 8 p. m. , which is a big challenge as they have backup batteries for lighting.
Denise and Shirley had dinner and went to bed, only to be woken up by a Marion County Sheriff’s Office agent who knocked on the back door. He had tried to knock on the front door, which sounded like a horse’s groan, but Denise listened. The master bedroom is at the back of the house.
The member told him he had to evacuate now. As she prepared, she went out to get a member out of the hallway for her to pass out.
Denise helped Shirley get dressed first, then pointed her two rescued animals and forced Savannah, a calico cat, into a cage. He put Guni, a five-pound pomeranian with no right front leg, in a giant purse.
He took his purse, then left it to take some medicine. They locked themselves in, piled up in the van and drove down the 125-foot driveway of the officer’s patrol.
Denise wished without delay that she would have glued more clothes, not to mention her wedding ring placed on the dresser. She was angry when she found out she had left her purse on the floor of the room without being too worried.
“My brain says to me, ‘You’ll be back in a few hours. ‘ “
The exit of the gun was done without incident, however, she will never have to slow down near Freres Lumber in Mills City behind two vans. The occupants made their horses run along their trucks.
He would have liked to have lent them his horse trailer.
While frantically speaking on the phone, Dennis had a bad feeling about Denise and Shirley, but he had a task to do, which could save other lives.
“I didn’t have time to think,” he says.
Denise tried to call her mobile phone when she contacted Stayton. You must have borrowed a phone. Yours was in her purse.
Dennis couldn’t answer. It’s too busy There’s no time between calls to go to the bathroom.
When he had a loose moment, he tried to call him, over and over again.
Technically, he was allowed to make non-public calls while working, under the circumstances, he did it anyway, alternating by calling his space and his cell phone.
Without her purse or her money, Denise went to METCOM to wait for Dennis in the parking lot, unless he knew, parked out of sight of the security cameras downtown. A few more spaces, and this would have kept Dennis from anguish. .
I didn’t know she was sitting there, unhinged, for more than two and a half hours.
A police officer, in spite of everything, approached her on his way to a call; she knew her husband and said Dennis would be relieved to learn that she was there. .
But it wasn’t until four in the morning.
When Dennis’s shift ended 3 hours later and he nevertheless hooked up with Denise and Shirley, they called his brother in hopes of staying with him, but he had to evacuate the outskirts of Sweet Home, which had been affected by the Holiday. Farm fire.
They called several hotels in Salem and located a hotel that accepted the animals.
Later that morning, they heard from their boss and the husband of a colleague who either showed that their space was gone. Photographs show that all status is two chimneys. Your mailbox is unscathed.
They saw the devastation firsthand on Thursday afternoon, escorted by an assistant sheriff. It was as bad as they imagined, but there was a bright spot.
“There was my menthol tractor, ” said Dennis.
Denise desperately sought to get her ring, but her insurance expert asked them to wait until he was there.
The loss of his house can bring Dennis closer to retirement, his wife doubts it very much.
He’s retiring last year after celebrating his 40th birthday, but there’s a national shortage of dispatchers and METCOM doesn’t have enough staff, so he stayed.
Dennis returned to painting for his normal shifts just four nights after wasting his house. His boss and manager told him they’d cover his shifts, but Dennis wanted to be there, he almost needed it.
“The first night back was very strange. There were still a lot of fires and shoots,” he said. “But it was general to me. We send other people and take care of the community. “
Capi Lynn is the columnist of the Statesman Journal. Sa narrates the center of this network: its people, its history and its problems. Contact her at clynn@StatesmanJournal. com and 503-399-6710, or with her on Twitter @CapiLynn and Facebook. @CapiLynnSJ.
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