Stories
A Lesser Man
Alumnus Tim McDevitt's tale of fighting fire at Breitenbush in 2020
THE FAMILY OF TIM McDEVITT, who with his brother and sisters attended MLC in the 1970s, has owned a cabin in the community at Breitenbush since the 1960s. Many people have loved the place—as visitors to the hot springs, or as fellow cabin owners—such as the Hunt family, also MLC alumni; or as winter visitors such as the MLC students stranded there in 1970 under eight feet of snow, as Tim Hunt recounted in a 2018 interview.
A few, including McDevitt, have resided there. None but he, however, together with the four fellow local firefighters pictured with him, has ever saved the place from destruction by fire, as they did in summer 2020.
In October that year, the online magazine Counterpunch published McDevitt's astounding account of the two days when the five men battled the Lionshead fire with hoses, adrenaline, and skill, as it raced down from Mt. Jefferson into their village.