Thursday, October 11 a wildfire erupted roughly 2 miles up Elk Prairie Road at a recently logged site. Piles of brush that were burning set nearby debris on fire but did not endanger a nearby residence. Multiple units from Pacific County Fire District 3 and Lebam Fire Station responded to the fire.
Rob "Gweedo" Gwerder, a nearby resident, was called by the company who logged the site and was asked to respond and work a loader at the scene to help firefighters. Gweedo works for another logging company and reportedly has over 20 years of heavy equipment experience. Gweedo is being praised for his willingness to respond and operate the machinery in such dangerous conditions. Once on scene he drove the loader nearly into the flames to pull burning logs towards awaiting fire crews to be extinguished.
He spent well over an hour working the loader up and around the hillside pulling apart the burning brush to help fire crews. His wife, Michelle Gwerder, live streamed the battle on Facebook. Gweedo is seen maneuvering the loader all over the scene picking burning log after burning log out of the brush. In several other video clips supplied to the Herald, Gweedo and the loader are seen slowly working from pile to pile to contain the fires spread. At times flames were as high as cab on the loader.
The fires were mostly extinguished within a few hours with a few piles that continued to burn well into Friday and Saturday. Fire crews responded swiftly to the fires' and credit Gweedo with helping get the upper hand on the scene.