By Jim Schultz
The Record Searchlight
ORLEANS, Wash. — Firefighters paid heartfelt tribute early Friday to one of their own who was killed last Saturday in the line of duty.
A sunrise memorial service attended by more than 1,000 firefighters celebrated the life, and courage, of a 49-year-old Washington fire chief who was overrun by the Panther Fire southwest of Happy Camp in Siskiyou County.
The service was one of two held Friday to honor Daniel Bruce Packer, the fire chief of the East Pierce Fire and Rescue in Bonney Lake, Wash.
Packer, who was preparing to take over the division supervisor duties for the lightning-sparked Panther Fire, died when it flared up last week and blew over him and nearly trapped another firefighter. They were both routinely scouting the blaze to become familiar with the fire conditions.
A fire investigative team that is trying to glean information about the accident announced Friday that the men were surveying a previously constructed fire line when the fire flared up and they began to retreat from the area.
The fire, however, compromised their escape route, the team reported.
Packer deployed his emergency fire shelter in an attempt to survive the advancing fire while the other firefighter ran down a steep slope that was covered with extremely heavy brush.
That firefighter escaped with only minor injuries and did not require hospitalization.
Because of the intensity of the fire, crews could not get to the site until the next day to recover Packer’s body.
His body was returned to Washington from Siskiyou County on Thursday.
Packer was a longtime Lake Tapps resident who started his career as a firefighter in 1981 in Burien. Before becoming a firefighter, he was a bull rider on the rodeo circuit.
A veteran wildland firefighter, Packer became the fire chief in Bonney Lake in 1995.
He is survived by his wife, four daughters, his mother and two grandchildren.
An Aug. 7 memorial service is scheduled at the Christian Faith Center in Federal Way, Wash.
Packer was the second firefighter killed while fighting a series of lightning-caused wildfires in the north state.
Another firefighter, Andrew Jackson Palmer, 18, of Port Townsend, Wash., died July 25 when he was hit by a tree while helping battle the Eagle Fire near Junction City in Trinity County.
A private memorial was held for Palmer on Friday in Redding.