Wayne Rowe retires

Wayne Rowe celebrates retirement. Photo provided

Wayne Rowe officially retired from his 32-year career in forestry and wildland firefighting in March.

"Mr. Sisters retires," his long time friend and High School Coach Roy Runco announced at a celebration Saturday night, April 18, in front of over 100 community members, co-workers, friends and family at Sisters Middle School.

Rowe has lived in Sisters since 1958.

He spent five years in the Navy before attending Central Oregon Community College and working for the USDA Forest Service Redmond Hot Shots.

He spent one year working for the Sisters Ranger District and then moved on to the Oregon Department of Forestry where he spent the rest of his 28 years in service.

Rowe was instrumental in creating the Central Oregon Fire Prevention Cooperative in 1979 and served as chairperson from 1980-1990.

For over 17 years he has been an integral part of the Pacific Northwest Fire Prevention Workshop Committee and, as part of the committee, was awarded the Silver Smokey Bear award in 2000.

He spent 10 years on an Oregon Department of Forestry Incident Management Team (1977-1987) and from 1998 to present has been part of the Central Oregon Interagency Incident Management Team.

His most memorable fires include: Cold Springs (Tollgate), Delicious, Sage Flat, Awbrey Hall, Skeleton and Cache Mountain.

Rowe has spent many years working on Incident Management Teams suppressing fires but his greatest passion was educating children and adults about wildfire prevention.

Rowe is looking forward to his retirement and new adventures with wife Stella, grandkids and family, golfing and playing music.