Local firefighter shares experience fighting the Almeda Fire

JACKSON COUNTY, Ore. — Two weeks have passed since the Almeda Fire tore through parts of Ashland, Phoenix, and Talent. Since then, people have slowly started returning to their regular routines, including firefighters.

Jesse Vermillion is a volunteer firefighter at the Jacksonville Fire Department. He’s going to school to become a full-time firefighter, but in the meantime, he works at FedEx to help pay the bills.

He says the day the Almeda Fire first sparked, he was delivering mail to residents in the Phoenix-Talent area.

“It was just a normal day at FedEx, I went in about 8 o clock in the morning,” Vermillion said. He thought,”This could be a sketchy day with the winds and it being dry and everything.”

Just a few hours into his shift, the fire first broke out, and he noticed smoke coming from Ashland

“I kept updating my boss like hey this is bad.”

When he noticed the fire was moving at an alarming rate, he knew it was time to change out of his FedEx uniform, and gear up for a fire fight no one expected.

“I saw smoke rolling past me in Talent and I was like this is really not good so I called my boss and told him I had to bow out and I need to get on this.”

Vermillion was sent back to the area where he had just delivered mail. He says what he returned to was a much different scenario.

“A lot of things were on fire… A lot of the places I had delivered to that day are actually gone now.”

Included in the places gone, is his childhood home.

“It’s kind of strange seeing your childhood neighborhood go up in flames.”

He was only 9 months into the job when the Almeda Fire broke out. He says he experienced something many seasoned firefighters haven’t seen before.

“It felt like it was not even 30 seconds between one structure igniting to the next and to the next and just watch it go down.”

He says the winds were so “strong and intense” that embers were flying 5 to 10 feet over his head. He says not only did the winds hinder their fire fight, they also ran out of water.

“At one point we were using fire hydrants like crazy and then a good majority of them went dry.”

It was nearly 40 hours that Vermillion worked straight without any sleep, but he says the experience solidified his passion for fighting fires.

“I would much rather be out there and doing what I can do and am able to do then sitting sideline and watching while other people helped and I didn’t.”

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