With Clayton MacRea’s retirement last month, Hood River Fire Department saw the end of an era.
“It was like a boy’s dream coming true: Hanging out at the firehouse,” said MacRea, who completed 34 years of service as a firefighter, including 22 years as captain, his retirement rank. His last day was Thanksgiving Day.
He started as a student firefighter in 1986-87, when he was a student at HRVHS.
That was when the fire department was still located at Second and State, in the ground floor of City Hall; the police department is now in that space.
MacRea was the last person on HR Fire and EMS to have served in the downtown fire hall. (In 1987, the city built a new fire hall, which was torn down and replaced in 2015.)
“I came at a good time, getting to work in the old fire hall and two new ones,” MacRea said.
“I have built some awesome friendships. A lot of these guys are part of my family,” he said, looking around the community room Friday at the fire hall, where about 30 fire and police professionals and volunteers gathered for MacRea’s retirement sendoff.
Scott Tennant of HR Fire, who was hired by MacRea, said, “I really appreciate it, and my wife does, too, for the opportunity to work here. I’ve been here 20 years. I like it, and without Clayton I wouldn’t be here.”
Matt Adams, now with West Side Fire Department, recalled the day he and other personnel went to a downtown fire after having just taken a forced entry class, “and we were going to hop out and force the door,” but MacRea was there first, with the door open and the situation under control.
“That was always Captain: He was the leader and go-getter and I appreciated all the time I was here.”
He told MacRea, “You were a mentor and a good friend.”
MacRea said, “One of the things I really appreciate was the fact of being able to work here is being able to take care of my own family. I took my Dad to Portland in the back of an ambulance. The best memories are that I was able to respond to help my family and good friends, which in a big organization you don’t get to do.”
Chief Leonard Damian presented him with a crystal plaque and West Side Lieut. Josh Beckner gave him an enlarged photo, signed by his associates, of MacRea at last summer’s Hood River Winery fire, his last.
MacRea moved to Hood River in 1986 from Redmond, and immediately signed on as a student firefighter. He graduated from HRVHS in 1987 and served as a volunteer from 1987-90, juggling that with work as a store manager before deciding to go professional. He was a firefighter-engineer from 1996-90 and made captain in 1996.
In 1986, coming to a new town at age 17, the fire hall gave him an anchor.
“At the time I started, we’d moved here several months earlier and I didn’t have a lot of friends. It was huge. It made a big impression at the time.”
Firefighting was not new to his family, nor to MacRea personally. His grandfather, Clell MacRea, started as a Redmond volunteer and later made chief, in the 1950s.
In about 1982, Redmond experienced a huge wildland fire, and called out citizens with shovels to try to stop it.
“My Dad and I were in a photo on the front page of the Redmond Spokesman, working on the fire line. That was something that stuck with me.”.
MacRea, like his grandfather, also made captain. He served in that position here for a few months in 1999 after Ed Sherrill departed, then stepped aside.
“I missed the shift work and the camaraderie,” he said. “I loved the work and I felt like I had a lot of impact. A lot of the policy decisions I was part of are still on the book.”
When Capt. Sonny Smith retired, he asked to “slip back into the captain’s spot.”
MacRea moved four years ago to Oregon City. His wife, Tamara, works as a Portland city firefighter. He will retain his paramedic license and is not ruling out future emergency response work, but for now he plans to travel, work on his golf game, “and catch more fish.”
MacRea said the biggest change he has seen is that “people don’t have the time to volunteer.”
When he started as a student, the department had between 50-60 volunteers.
Now, he said, “For our department, we essentially have a couple of volunteers but we’re staffed at the same level as 10 years ago, and quite honestly, my goal was to retire before I was involved in an incident that went bad and someone got hurt or worse because of lack of resources. It’s a situation agencies face all over the county.”
There was a time when agencies responded to their own fires but these days they must share resources.
“It’s mutual aid, automatic aid: Everyone (multiple agencies) goes, and sometimes we have departments that can’t staff a fire, or can’t even go at all,” MacRea said.
“The lack of resources is huge. Quite honestly, I believe we’re at a crisis level and I think it’s going to take something horrific before everyone comes together and figures something out,” MacRea said. “I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s terrible.”
He noted that the department is running hundreds of calls a year, with close to the same number of personnel as 20 years ago when there were about a third fewer calls.
Tamara works for Portland fire, and agencies staff stations with four to five people, like Hood River, and they go to 400-500 calls a year but they have other stations around them.
“I don’t think the county of Hood River should be treated any differently,” he said.
“When I started it was all-volunteer ambulance when I first got my EMT training, you signed up for 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and you hoped volunteers would show up.
“You never had to worry, you always had volunteers show up. But as times change, there are the same needs but fewer people available.”
The ambulance is now professionally staffed.
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