Just off the Imnaha Highway and at the bottom of the westward slope from Joseph Charter School, a class action is taking place. Not a lawsuit, but action by the school’s fire science class on a log deck.

JCS physical education teacher and basketball coach Olan Fulfer teaches the class. Fulfer is a long-time summer firefighter with the Oregon Department of Forestry. He started the class last year to give students opportunities for summer employment.

Shirley Hindman of Elgin donated the logs to the class and Gilbert Trucking dropped off the logs. Keeping a close eye on the student with the saw, Fulfer said the class appreciates the windfall.

“This is pretty huge for us,” he said, pointing to the log deck. “For that cord of wood we get a ton of saw training.”

He explained that each student cuts up a log before being replaced by another student. Not everyone was gung-ho about the saw training.

“A lot of the kids were nervous at first, so we had Jake Layton and Joseph Goebel from ODF and forest service go through safety,” Fulfer said “They learn to take a chain saw apart, put it back together and clean it. We talk a ton about the safety with it before getting out on the field.” He added that initially, returners from last year’s class run the saw for the first weeks as newer students observed the process.

Some are still not comfortable using the saw. No worries — there’s plenty of room for wood splitting and stacking. Everyone has to pitch in and help.

At the moment, two returners, Hadley Miller and Carson Littlepage, are running the chain saws. Those with saw experience also give out pointers and safety tips to students new to the game. Others split and stack.

What happens to the wood students split and stack? It’s sold for $200 per cord, and that money goes back into the fire science account. Later, the class will use the funds for field trips to do their own burns, buy equipment such as splitting mauls and possibly even another chain saw.

“Those splitting malls are like gold,” Fulfer said. “If we only have one of those, we have people standing around. If we have more than one, more people can be splitting and stacking. We try not to have too many people watching.”

He added that if the weather is cold, a fire is built but he tries to have the students do an hour and 45 minutes of continuous labor.

Littlepage is an old hand at handling the chain saw. It’s his second year in the class.

“I like it — it’s a lot of fun, because it gets me out of doors,” he said.

His favorite part of the class is running the chain saw. He’s looking forward to traveling to a burn at the Yost ranch outside of Joseph.

“That’s my senior project,” he said.

The class still has a number of logs left to cut. Fulfer said that’s because the class recently spent a bit of time in the classroom and returners have been out in the field with forestry duties.

“It (the wood) won’t last too much longer,” he said, laughing.

To inquire about wood from the class, contact Joseph Charter School at 541-432-7311.

“We’ll try to get them going as quick as we can,” Fulfer said.