From the Mail Tribune, Friday, August 31, 2001, Letters to the editor.
Fire crews say thanks
To the people of Jackson and Josephine counties:
The men and women who have battled the Quartz Fire are deeply grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support and encouragement that we experienced from your community. We have been overwhelmed with meaningful gestures of love and concern. In spite of the many inconveniences you've had to deal with, you have made it clear in many significant ways that you supported us as we fought to control the Quartz Fire.
And for that we offer our heartfelt thanks.
The supportive signs, the ice cream and snow cones, the candy and baked goods, the toiletries and personal hygiene articles, the drinking water, the offers of places to sleep and ponds to dip from and free fresh corn, the washing and ironing of clothes, the assistance with disseminating information about the fire, letting us use your fields for camps and staging areas and helibases - the list is endless of the ways your community has supported our firefighters. You have communicated to us in a thousand ways that you understand the sacrifices we faced as we focused on stopping the fire.
Your community exhibits a cohesiveness, a unity, a resilience that we highly respect and seldom see. From our eyes, yours is a community to be proud of, a community that can pull together and minimize its differences when faced with the threat of serious danger. Rather than pointing fingers of blame at outsiders and at each other, you work together in networks of caring , concerned citizens, and you find effective ways to serve each other. We appreciate you, and we hope that you realize that you are a very special community.
- Greg Gilpin, Quartz Fire incident commander