In the chilly, rainy days of autumn, it’s easy to forget the smoke and forest fires of Pacific Northwest Forests. But it was on one such day that Lane’s Wildland Fire Management students were hard at work, swinging pickaxes, shovels, and rakes as they learned how to quickly cut a fireline through blackberry brambles and brush in the forest behind main campus. That hard work was made easier thanks to a generous grant from Weyerhaeuser, which provided $10,000 for industry-standard equipment for students to learn with.
“Make sure you maintain your spacing, so you don’t hit your friend next to you,” instructor Sara Fraser said playfully as she demonstrated the tools. Sara brings her first-hand experience from working with Oregon Woods, Inc. and the U.S. Forest Service to her class, Wildland Fuels Management and Prescribed Burning. It’s one of six classes students take to earn their Wildland Fire Management Certificate of Completion, which prepares them for a wide array of fire management positions.
“I’m excited to work with the [new] tools,” said one student, Sam, “because it gives us real experience before we actually go out there and do it ourselves on the line.”
The donation came as an extension of Weyerhaeuser’s Fighting Fires Together program, which was started in response to the devastating 2020 wildfires, initially providing mental health resources to firefighters.
“This investment with Lane Community College is just taking it a step further,” explained Kyleigh Gill, Oregon Public Relations Manager at Weyerhaeuser, “making sure that students know that there are job opportunities and get excited about the career.”
For Weyerhaueser, the donation is both an investment in public safety and workforce development. For Lane, this is another opportunity to strengthen the real-world skills students learn and to partner with community organizations as Lane County’s workforce hub.
And for students, like Sam, it’s a way to enter a rewarding, in-demand career field and give back to their community.
Lane Community College educates over 17,000 students annually at six locations across Lane County and online. Students and alumni from all 50 states and 79 countries create more than an $816.2 million dollar impact on the local economy, helping to support more than 9,700 local jobs. Lane provides affordable, quality, professional technical and college transfer programs; business development and employee training; academic, language and life skills development; and lifelong personal development and enrichment courses