California Firefighters Set Up Memorial for Fallen Friend

Mark Ratledge may be gone, but his family, friends and former co-workers are making sure he’s not forgotten.

A captain with the Cottonwood Fire Protection District, Ratledge was struck and killed by a pickup that slid off a hail-covered Interstate 5 on Feb. 29, 2012, as he helped the drivers of two other vehicles involved in an accident. The 35-year-old was the first Cottonwood firefighter killed in the line of duty.

On Saturday, girlfriend Jennifer Hobbs and the Cottonwood FPD invite friends and the public to celebrate his life and the completion of two commemorative signs along I-5 in Cottonwood marking his service and sacrifice. A gathering will be held at 1 p.m. in the Gold Hills Event Center, 1950 Gold Hills Drive in Redding. It is free and open to the public.

“We wanted to do this as a thank-you because of all the support we’ve had from the community,” Hobbs said on Friday. “It was a huge undertaking to have the highway signs put in, and all the community got in on it.”

Hobbs said Cottonwood Fire Chief Eugene “Sonny” Zahara deserved special thanks for spearheading a fundraising campaign that earned enough donations to install the signs and also for navigating the red tape to have a segment of I-5 designated the “Cottonwood FPD Capt. Mark Ratledge Memorial Highway.”

Cottonwood FPD spokesman Rodney Chadbon said donations totaled about $10,000 and the highway signs cost about $7,000 to make, permit and install. The rest of the money raised will go toward the Mark Ratledge Memorial Scholarship, a fund set up to help Foothill High School students interested in pursuing a career in firefighting.

The highway signs went up about two weeks ago. One sits on the shoulder of southbound I-5 just north of the Cottonwood Main Street exit, and another is visible to northbound drivers in the median just south of Bowman Road.

“He’ll never be lost in our thoughts down here (at the Fire Department),” Chadbon said. “He was just a good guy, very dedicated to wanting to do good for the department. He loved kids and he loved his little daughter, Sophia.”

Hobbs said she and her daughter had made about 400 cookies for Saturday’s celebration. Life has been tough in the three years since Ratledge’s death, she said, but a tremendous outpouring of support from firefighters and the community has helped.

“Sophia is getting to that age where she asks about her father and that has been the newest hardest struggle – trying to explain to a 4-year-old where her dad is,” Hobbs said. “But there has been a lot of support from the firefighters, and a lot of memorials for Mark. He put his life on the line to help other people.”