It’s been five years since the Holiday Farm Fire raged through the McKenzie River valley. It burned more than 173,000 acres, including most of the community of Blue River.

Patence Winningham was Lane County Emergency Manager at the time. She lives in McKenzie Bridge, just a few miles east of the fire’s devastation. That’s where she was when the fire started on the night of Sept. 7, 2020.

On a late summer morning five years later, Winningham stood alongside the McKenzie High School football field in Blue River.

“Well, I went to high school here, so I’m a McKenzie alum,” she said. “And this is somewhat of a lighthouse for the community in that it survived the holiday farm fire.”

Firefighters were able to keep the flames from burning the school down. But the old wooden grandstand was de

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