Corey Young, left, talks about his short career as a volunteer with the Sumner Fire Department; he is only 18 years old. The help he has given the department is enough to earn him the honor of being a finalist for firefighter of the year in Oregon. His father Tim Young, right, also is a volunteer with the department. World Photo by Lou Sennick

Perched atop a hill east of Coos Bay is a low-slung house, its tall living-room picture window displaying the cavernous, tree-carpeted valley below. But inside the wide, sparely furnished space, perhaps the most unusual feature is not the view but one of the photographs displayed on a nearby wall.

In the foreground is a grinning teenage boy - and behind him, incongruously, is a two-story house being devoured in flames from floor to shingles. But the image - taken from a "burn-to-learn" drill - points to his role as a volunteer firefighter, training for his future career but already with two years of work, and a statewide honor, to his name.

Early Thursday evening, the fireman returned home from a day's work as a logger and mechanic with a local lumber firm, looking much like any recent high-school graduate with a summer job.

"Changed an engine today," Corey Young said gaily as he strode through the living room in oil-streaked overalls.

Upon emerging from his room minutes later, now donning jeans and a dark blue shirt, he explained his summer work cutting trees and servicing trucks was preparation for his planned career as a rural firefighter.

That career already includes more than two years with the Sumner Rural Fire Protection District, experience taking on the 2003 Hootman Fire south of Coos Bay - and the honor of being named one of Oregon's four best volunteer firefighters. Nominated as the Sumner district's firefighter of the year, Young became one of the Oregon Volunteer Firefighters Association's four finalists as the state's best fire volunteer. (A Corvallis man later won the state award.)

He and the three others were invited to the agency's June conference in Redmond, where they received a crash course in technique and awareness. The four practiced the technique of using chainsaws to cut paths and escape routes through snags.

"There's a lot to look out for when you're cutting snags, which are generally on fire when you cut them," Young said drily. "I have to figure out what's going to happen, what's going to fall, when a tree is rotten."

Though Corey is the son of a fireman - he works for the Sumner district alongside his father, Tim, a Sause Bros. employee who helped found a company fire brigade in Eastside to supplement the Coos Bay Fire Department - father and son agreed the younger Young's zeal for firefighting is his own, an enthusiasm for protecting lives and operating heavy machinery in equal measure.

"About four years ago I had a friend who volunteered for the Greenacres department," Corey recalled. "I loved it right away, mostly because of the trucks; I just love machines."

"He's always had a love for trucks, machines, anything with a motor," Tim Young said with a smile as he sat in the family living room.

After Corey joined Sumner Fire in the summer of 2002, shortly after turning 16, the teenager familiarized himself with the routine of a small-town fire force: practicing on derelict buildings put to the torch, learning first-aid skills to handle medical emergencies (the agency responded to more than 50 last year), coaxing massive fire engines up and down the district's steep switchback roads. Barely a year later, he found himself with much more important roles: as a summer volunteer for the Coos Forest Protective Association attacking the Hootman Fire, then serving as a snag-cutter at the B & B Complex fire outside Sisters a few months later.

Almost from the day Corey entered the Sumner department, Tim Young remembered, it was obvious his son approached the work not as a civic exercise but as a career in the making.

"I've seen few kids who were this focused on something this young, putting in the amount of time and effort that he does," he said, adding jocularly: "If he didn't wash his clothes here, he'd spend all of his time at the station."

The road map Corey Young is creating for himself is fairly clear: studying fire science at Southwestern Oregon Community College, starting this fall; paramedic training; then a local, full-time firefighting job combined with more fire administration study through Western Oregon University. But even with such a defined plan for his future, Corey finds the real pleasures of the job are more basic.

His crew members "are out there for you and you're out there for them," he said. "There's nothing cooler than being with people who would give up their lives for you."

His voice brightening, he quickly added, "And then there's the adrenaline rush - and girls like firefighters," he said with a laugh.