Memorial Picture Board for Matt Hammer
A 14-day tour
This summer was full of endings and beginnings for Matt Hammer.
The 23-year-old from Grants Pass graduated in May with a business degree from Corban College, a small Christian school in Salem. In late June he married his college girlfriend, Monica Crumley — and left soon thereafter for what was supposed to be his final summer fighting fires.
Hammer was one of nine men who died Tuesday when a firefighting helicopter crashed in the mountains of Northern California.
Friends say Hammer joined a crew the past few summers, often with buddies. He was tall and muscular and unflappable under pressure. “At the end of the day, he loved the adventure and loved being with the guys,” says Katie Dennis, a college friend.
Hammer grew up in Northern California and moved to Grants Pass as a teenager, friends say. He graduated from Grants Pass High School in 2003 and was close with his parents and three sisters.
At Corban, he developed a reputation as a fierce member of intramural football and basketball teams. The faculty squad dreaded having to play him.
Friends say Hammer was quiet — not one to be the center of attention. But he was fun-loving, too, always up for a prank or snowball fight. He enjoyed doing anything outdoors, and he had eclectic interests.
“We talked about stuff from accounting to girls to cars to forest fires,” says Rick Kappler, a close friend from college.
Hammer was well known at Corban, which has fewer than 1,000 students.
“He was friendly with everybody,” Dennis says. “People kind of fell in love with him, even if they didn’t know him.”
Word of the crash spread quickly this week, says Bryce Bernard, dean of the business school.
He remembers Hammer as a good student. Hammer wanted to start his own company someday, but he hadn’t decided exactly what or where he might work first. As a senior, Bernard says, Hammer talked about two passions: getting married and fighting forest fires again.
“He did that every summer,” Bernard says, “and he loved doing it.”
The night before his wedding, Hammer ate a picnic dinner with family and friends at a park in Gold Beach, along Oregon’s southern coast. He and his buddies built a huge bonfire at the beach.
The next morning, Hammer was up early for breakfast and boyish fun with his groomsmen, using small explosives to blow up bottles in the country. They barely made it to the wedding in time, Kappler remembers, but Hammer was characteristically calm.
He and Crumley exchanged vows outside her parents’ home, on a deck built for the ceremony. In pictures, Hammer is beaming, his light-brown hair neatly trimmed.
The newlyweds spent their honeymoon in Hawaii, then headed back to Oregon. Hammer had lined up another fire-fighting stint with Grayback Forestry Inc. As Kappler understood it, the mission was supposed to last 14 days.
It’s hard to accept the realization things didn’t turn out that way, Kappler says. But his faith, he said, helps him cope.
“I will see Matt Hammer again,” he said.
– Laura Oppenheimer
More tribute and memorial sites for Matt Hammer:
I will see Matt Hammer again