Firefighters praise GCD community

With many cities, counties, fire districts and multiple jurisdictions of every kind coming together in the Grand Coulee Dam community, it can leave many newcomers scratching their heads, but firefighters on the Grass Valley Fire reported seeing a remarkably close community.

At a meeting called Monday to give the community information on the Grass Valley Fire, Public Information Officer Ben Shearer, from the Southeast Washington Incident Management Team, said he has been fighting fires for 28 years, but had to give credit to the Grand Coulee Senior Center, which had stepped up to a challenge when asked by the Department of Natural Resources to provide breakfast for the firefighters on Sunday morning.

“It’s always hard, especially in small communities, to get resources together to feed 250 people,” he said. “And they really stepped up. It wasn’t just food, it was amazing food.”

“All it took was one call to Cheryl Hoffman, and she had it handled,” high school Principal Mark Herndon said later.

Hoffman tells the story of volunteers answering the call in her letter to the editor on page 3.

She told The Star Tuesday that the effort paid off unexpectedly. She said they had not planned on getting paid, but feeding the firefighters breakfast, then dinner on Sunday, and another breakfast on Wednesday morning would bring in about $10,000 to the senior center.

Herndon also said that Harvest Foods made sack lunches for firefighters, which were also praised by them.

Grand Coulee Project Fire Chief Shane Smoger said the lunches far surpassed what he was used to on fires. And he certainly never had coffee poured for him at 6 a.m., he added.

Smoger, who just arrived at Grand Coulee in September of 2017, said he was impressed by how well the various local fire departments worked together on a big fire.

The Bureau of Reclamation, he noted, devoted all its fire fighting resources to the fire, something he would not have expected to be allowed during his military career.

“We want to be part of the community,” he said.