Randy Leming & Rory Collins Are Longtime Managers of the Douglas Forest Protective Association
By Craig Reed
With decades of family history in the firefighting industry, Rory Collins and Randy Leming were comfortable continuing that line of work.
They are longtime employees and managers of Douglas Forest Protective Association. The organization’s mission is to provide the highest level of service to safeguard life, resources, and property from wildland fire through practical prevention and aggressive fire suppression.
DFPA monitors 1,600,000 acres of federal, state, county, tribal, and private lands for 85 association members with large landholdings and for thousands of others with smaller properties.
Randy has been with the association for 35 years. He is the supervisor for the dispatch center, the detection camera center, the firefighting supplies department, and the automotive shop.
Rory is a 25-year DFPA employee. He is the deputy district manager, whose responsibilities include filling in as the district manager and managing the aviation, fire investigation, industrial fire, public information, information technology, assessment and tax classification, and grants programs.
Rory is the 4th generation of his family to work for DFPA. His great-grandfather, Carl Thornton, was a forest officer with the association. His grandfather, Lloyd Thornton, was a forest practice forester with DFPA and the Oregon Department of Forestry. His uncle, Melvin Thornton, retired in 2017 after 45 years with the association.
Rory’s great-grandmother, Pearl Thornton, and his grandmother, Betty Thornton, lived at and cooked for fire crews at Hinkle Creek Guard Station east of Sutherlin.
Randy’s early fire experience came thanks to his father, Bill, who was the Myrtle Creek Fire Department chief for 45 years, and to friend Bruce Ferguson, the forester for the South Douglas unit of DFPA.
Although neither Rory nor Randy was a part-time employee of DFPA because they were summer American Legion baseball players and college players, they heard plenty of fire talk and were able to go out on some fire calls.
After 2 years at Umpqua Community College, Randy worked with his father in the family’s automotive repair business in Myrtle Creek for 12 years until he was encouraged to apply for the dispatch position at DFPA. He says Bill supported him, and Randy was hired in 1990. Through the years, his responsibilities increased to managing the detection camera, fire supplies, and automotive departments.
“I was fortunate the opportunity came along for me here,” Randy says. “With 120 pieces in the DFPA fleet, they keep me in the automotive end of things. Having grown up around fire, I’m still able to be involved in that. It’s been rewarding to work here.”
Rory earned an education degree at Western Oregon State University in Monmouth, but he never applied for a teaching job. Instead, he applied for an open crew position at DFPA, was hired, and has gradually been assigned more responsibilities.
“I like the competition of fighting fire,” he says. “I look at it as a challenge, a really hard challenge, that needs to be achieved. I like the model we promote here and what we achieve. We fight fire the way we see fit. We’re an aggressive, initial attack fire agency that is highly effective. We pride ourselves on keeping fires small.”
Between June 6 and August 18, DFPA crews responded to 290 calls and doused 49 human-caused fires, limiting the total burned area to 130 acres.
Douglas Forest Protective Association has a long history of its own. The association was established after industrial timber owners decided in 1912 that they needed an organization whose purpose was to protect their resources and investments in the land. In the years since, DFPA’s focus has expanded beyond timberlands to include grazing land and the ever-increasing number of rural residences and structures.
“To support our mission statement, we provide fire prevention, fire detection, fire suppression, and fire finance,” DFPA District Manager Pat Skrip says. “We focus on those and all the logistics that go on to do so. Our strategy is to never get behind, but rather to be very aggressive on fire prevention and suppression.”
The extent of the mountaintop cameras that relay views and any sign of smoke to the fire detection center is generally from Northern California north to Corvallis and from the Pacific Ocean east to Highway 97.
During the past several years, according to Pat, 94% of fires in Douglas County have been suppressed at 10 acres or less, 96% have been suppressed at 100 acres or less, and 98% have been suppressed at 1,000 acres or less. Pat says DFPA responds to fires swiftly, efficiently, and aggressively with its own resources of firefighters and equipment.
“The remaining 2% are the challenge,” he says. “Those are the ones that have burned tens of thousands of acres in the last 12 years. Those are the ones that we’ve had to bring in outside sources to help fight.”
DFPAs a nonprofit organization with a $10,000,000 operating budget. It is 1 of only 3 fire associations in Oregon—the other 2 are Coos Forest Protective Association and Walker Range Fire Patrol Associates—and 1 of only 5 similar active fire organizations in the United States.