BAKER CITY — Baker City residents with the nonprofit Relief Angels are collecting donations for volunteer firefighters and people the massive blazes burning in Eastern Oregon have displaced.

The organization has partnered with Pizza Hut and Veterans of Foreign Wars to create drop-off locations for the foreseeable future.

“I made some posts saying that we were looking for drop off locations and Pizza Hut offered,” said Amanda Baker, local coordinator for Relief Angels. “And then I mentioned that we were looking for a commercial kitchen so VFW offered up their kitchen to us.”

The drop-off location will be open every day at Pizza Hut, 780 Campbell St., from 10 a.m. through midnight, and at the VFW Memorial Club, 2005 Valley Ave., 2:30-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 2:30-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

“We find out what each volunteer fire department, ranchers and farmers need then we take (the donations) to them,” Baker said.

The donations they’re looking for are “things you would use if you were out backpacking,” she said,” including “pick-me-up snacks” or “anything that doesn’t melt in the heat,” such as water, Gatorade, wet wipes and more.

For the Baker Relief Angels there are around 10 to 20 volunteers helping Karla Shute, a Baker City resident, with cooking meals, and seven other volunteers helping out in other ways. More volunteers are always welcome, Baker said.

“It’s not an obligation, it’s just a desire because you care about the people and the community,” she said. “You don’t come to Baker to be by yourself, you’re in Baker to be part of the community.”

Baker, originally from Gold Hill, has been a Baker City resident for 15 years.

Relief Angels was founded in 2005 with the intention of providing equipment for volunteer and underfunded emergency departments, Executive Director Valerie Odai said.

“Over the years it’s expanded,” she said. “On the civilian side, there was a dire need.”

The organization covers everything east of the Cascades, aiming to establish drop-off sites in the counties between the Canadian border down into Northern California.

“We have a lot of drop points. We work with a lot of different businesses and a lot of different people all over the Pacific Northwest,” Odai said. “And we always need more.”

Odai got involved with Relief Angels in 2015 after the Canyon Creek Fire in her hometown of Canyon City, which resulted in the destruction of 43 homes and almost 100 barns, workshops and other structures.

The fire burned 110,000 acres of private and federal land.

“I personally knew a large portion of residents that were impacted,” Odai said. “I was living three hours away, and I (couldn’t) be down there but I (could) fundraise.”

At the same time in August 2015 the Canyon Creek Fire was burning, the Cornet-Windy Ridge Fire burned 104,000 acres in Baker County. That was the county’s biggest blaze on record until this month, when the Durkee Fire has burned almost 300,000 acres in Baker and Malheur counties.

Odai was promoted to executive director in 2020.

Relief Angels provides relief for all kinds of natural or civil disasters, not just wildfires.

“We do not receive any money from the government,” Odai said. “We are 100% grassroots, community funded and operated.”

Baker said she became involved with Relief Angels after someone mentioned the organization in a Facebook group that she’s in.

Shute and Doreneia Karolski, another Baker City resident, wanted to make meals and support the firefighters and volunteers, so Baker reached out to the organization to get resources and help them with their goals while avoiding the “government red tape.”

Baker said initially there were so many people in the community also wanting to contribute that it made things counterproductive, so the Relief Angels team assisted with making sure everything was in order and no resources were wasted.

“We love each other,” Odai said, “even though we don’t know each other.”

People who want volunteer for Relief Angels can sign up on the organization’s website: Relief-Angels.org. There also is a link at the top of the webpage detailing the most commonly needed items.

And there is an online donation account to raise money to maintain equipment for the Burnt River Rangeland Fire Protection Association, the volunteer association that was first to respond to the Durkee Fire and whose members have been fighting the fire since lightning started it July 17.

To donate, go to shorturl.at/RN2f5.