Residents return to their homes after Hugo Road Fire swept through town

HUGO, Ore. — The Hugo Road Fire is no longer considered an active fire and residents have finally started to return to their home. Some of them are returning to a few minor damages and others are returning to nothing.

Levi Phillips, a homeowner in Hugo, was one of the residents whose home was damaged by the fire.

He was out of town when he got the call on Sunday that his home was in danger of the fire.

“We weren’t here, so we didn’t evacuate, we actually came back around 10 o’clock Sunday night,” Phillips said.

By the time he arrived, he was only able to save his animals.

“We were able to get up the road, most of this damage had already occurred.”

Phillips has more than 30 years of experience in firefighting and wasn’t too afraid when he heard the news of the fire.

“It’s either going to burn or it’s not going to burn,” he said. “There’s God and firefighters and somebody was on our side.”

Since Phillips has many year of experience in firefighting, he knows that defensible space is a key component to keeping homes safe when it comes to fires.

Phillips say he tried to maintain the best defensible space as he could, which helped save his home, but he fell flat in some areas.

“The only reason why we have a little bit of damage is because there was a pretty good hedge here and a little bit of wood,” he said. “So that’s where most of this came from.”

Phillips home had incurred minor damage. A corner of his home was burned, he had a few broken windows from the heat and his chicken coop was burned down.

But he knows that the damage he incurred, it’s not as bad as it could be.

“There’s a gentleman on the hill here that lost his entire house and we’re out of water,” he said. “I mean, whoopee, it could be a lot worse.”