By Ty Walker, The Mountain Times
Nick Miller was 9 years old when his family moved to Zigzag in 1993. He grew up and has devoted much of his adult life giving back to the Mount Hood community in which he was raised.
After graduating from Sandy High School in 2001, he became a volunteer firefighter at Hoodland Fire District at the age of 18, following in the footsteps of inspiring family friends.
At first, Miller had aspirations of becoming a career firefighter but his life went in a different direction and today he’s happy in his role as a volunteer. His landscaping business took off and he became a dad. He and his wife Caitlin, a schoolteacher, have two kids, Oliver, 6, and Valerie, 3.
“I started originally to help out the community,” Miller said. “I enjoy being a volunteer firefighter. It’s rewarding giving back to the community. When I was younger, I thought I’d work at it as a career. Then I started working at my landscaping maintenance company and I enjoyed having the freedom.”
“I wanted to be a dad. I didn’t grow up with my dad around. I wanted to be home with my kids. As a career fireman, you don’t get that. You’re away from home a lot.”
The times have changed since Miller started at Hoodland Fire District. There were a lot more volunteers during his early days, and the district relied heavily on their help. Numbers have dwindled nationwide, and these days fire departments struggle to maintain enough volunteers.
“When I started there were 40 to 50 volunteers,” Miller said. “The place was packed on drill nights.”
Hoodland gets a consistent flow of younger folks through its in-house student program, composed of young people looking for a career. Miller wants to see more people in the community coming out to volunteer.
Now 41, Miller stays in good shape and feels like he can still help protect the community in the different kinds of emergencies occurring on the mountain. When he was younger, volunteers ran the station overnight, with paid staff working during the day. He said volunteers would run hundreds of calls a year. Even with career paid staff doing most of the work these days, he still responds to calls from his Zigzag home on the bigger incidents.
He has fought large fires in Collins Lake, Golden Poles Chalet in Government Camp, The Resort At The Mountain, and the Summit in Government Camp, to name a few. Most emergencies requiring his attention are medical.
His busy schedule makes life a real balancing act. Running his Cascade Yard Works landscaping business and raising a family make it a challenge to get all of his firefighting training done. Over the last few years, he hasn’t been able to put as much time into it as he’d like.
“I still attend drills and run calls,” Miller said. “I’m getting the kids off to school, helping my wife get dinner ready and playing that stay-at-home dad role a little bit.”
This winter, you might see him plowing snow at one of the many vacation rental companies that his landscaping business services. He’s been plowing snow commercially for nearly 20 years.
Miller enjoys the outdoors and winter sports like snowboarding and skiing. He also shares his love of baseball and football with his son, a first-grader at Welches School.
“I wish more people would think about volunteering,” he said. “It’s not for everybody. But it makes it easier when we’re there to help. When someone’s having their worst day, we’re there to help.”