Hengel was part of a crew of eight firefighters _ including six who grew up in and around this timber town _ who were killed Sunday when their van crossed a double-yellow line and collided head-on with a tractor-trailer as they were headed home from a grueling 14-day stretch of firefighting in Idaho's remote wilderness.
``It's like losing your own son. Everybody knows everybody,'' said Bob Krueger, president of First Strike Environmental, the company the crew worked for.
The deaths have left many mourning in this southwestern Oregon town on the banks of the Umpqua River, where the forest has provided jobs for more than a century.
Hengel ``was just a big teddy bear,'' Steve Kiepert, security officer at Roseburg High School, said of Hengel. ``I don't think he had a mean bone in his body.''
Hengel's mother, Judy, said his size belied his gentle nature.
``The high school football coach wanted him so badly, but that kind of aggression wasn't his thing. He just didn't want to hurt anybody,'' she said. ``He had an old soul.''
Hengel began fighting fires in 2001 to help pay his way through the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, his family said. Recently, he worked in New Orleans and hoped to use this summer's firefighting money to go to Germany.
``The kid was phenomenal. He had done more stuff in his short little life than I've done in my whole life,'' said his father, Brian Hengel.
Also killed were Ricardo ``Ricky'' Ruiz, 19, of Roseburg; Mark Ransdell, 23, of Myrtle Creek; Jesse James, 22, of Roseburg; David Hammer, 38, of Portland; Leland Price Jr., 27, of Roseburg; Paul Gibson, 25, of Myrtle Creek; and Richard B. Moore II, 21, of Portland.
The collision happened on a remote highway in eastern Oregon, near the Idaho state line.
A witness to the crash rescued the couple in the tractor-trailer: Stephen Nicholson, 37, and Joy Nicholson, 39, of Ogden, Utah, Malheur County Undersheriff Brian Wolfe said.
The witness, Don Lammers, heard the crash from his nearby home. He pulled the couple and their dog across the road to safety moments before the fireball erupted, Wolfe said.
Stephen Nicholson was treated and released from Holy Rosary Medical Center, and Joy Nicholson was in good condition Monday, hospital spokeswoman Angie Sillonis said.
Ransdell's death came nine years after his older brother, Mike, was killed in a crash with a drunken driver, his parents said.
``There's just no words, no words, to describe it,'' said his father, Dale, a retired sheriff's deputy. ``It's so unfair. We were starting to get over the other one _ and now this.''
Mark Ransdell's parents said he was just beginning to recover emotionally from the loss of his older brother and had been dating a woman he had met on the fire lines last year.
Firefighting jobs attract a lot of recent high school graduates, who join crews like those employed by First Strike, said Roseburg Mayor Larry Rich, also an assistant principal at Roseburg High School. More than 90 percent of the privately contracted fire crews in the United States are based in Oregon.
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