After shots were fired, IVFD is changing their triage plan

O’Brien, Ore.- llinois Valley Fire District says wildfire season took a dangerous turn for its’ crews this weekend. It wasn’t the flames that put them at risk, it was someone firing a gun.

Illinois Valley Fire District representatives say for the time being they’re no longer going to be making triage assessments on local structures all because of the shots fired this weekend.

They’ve been busy preparing their area in case the Chetco Bar Fire spreads going from house to house, to make sure homes and buildings are protected from flames.

On Sunday their good deed was met with gunfire, six gunshots to be exact.

IVFD’s Jason Bayless says the shots weren’t aimed directly at IVFD crews. They were warning shots. And Bayless says they know what they were being warned about.

“The amount of (marijuana) grows in our area. We think its probably related to that.”

Alan Colicott lives where Lone Mountain Road and Naue Way intersect, near where the shots were fired. Colicott says the area is peaceful.

He grows marijuana on his property; multiple plants that are each roughly five feet tall.

Colicott says that he wouldn’t be concerned about Illinois Valley Fire seeing his marijuana plants if they were still doing triage’s.

In fact, he was shocked to hear how nervous it potentially made some of his neighbors.

“Firing on a cop. That’s crazy,” Colicott says.

Even though four of the five acres of land that he lives on was scorched by fire six years ago Alan Colicott says he isn’t worried about the end to triage efforts causing the flames to make a return to his home.

“This area has been thinned out before so I don’t think the fire would ever get to us.”

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