It has been three years since his untimely death, but the spirit of former chief Dan Packer still permeates East Pierce Fire and Rescue.

“He was more than a leader to the people that worked here,” said Assistant Chief John McDonald, adding that Packer was the “driving force” behind the consolidation of fire districts that led to the creation of the East Pierce we know today.

To further honor his memory, McDonald is leading an effort to install a permanent memorial display in Packer’s honor at the Public Safety Building.

“The organization really very much reflects his vision, his personality, his ideas,” McDonald said. “If you’re going to understand the organization, you have to understand the guy that was here or it just gets lost in the translation.”

On Tuesday, the third anniversary of Packer’s death, the department dedicated the memorial, which included mementos from the former chief’s entire life, from his boyhood on a ranch in Montana to the tools of the trade he used while fighting the wild fire that claimed his life in 2008.

Packer died July 26, 2008, while fighting the Panther Fire in Klamaath National Forest in northern California. Packer was a member of a Washington state-based incident management team and was deployed to major incidents, most frequently large wildland fires.

McDonald said the department made a promise to remember its former chief and the display cabinets are a way to meet that obligation.

“We thought before too much time passes we need to gather that stuff,” McDonald said.

The display, which was put together with help of the Packer family, contains copies of Packer’s favorite book (“The Virginian,” by Owen Wister) as well as one of his favorite movies (“Mama Mia”) and several mementos from his life, including his high school yearbook, the tracings of the brand from the ranch where he grew up and even an ice cream scoop, to commemorate the chief’s love of the dessert treat.

Also included in the memorial are items such as a fire axe and a charmed Pulaski, a half-axes, half-hoe tool used in fighting wildfires. T-shirts commemorating the fire and coins and memorial programs remembering Packer were also included in the display.

McDonald said the cases should provide a balance of Packer’s life and work and he hopes to give younger recruits who never met the former chief a sense of what he was like and how he shaped East Pierce.

“He was very much about ‘what are we doing for our people?'” McDonald said. Honoring him is how we continue to jeep the organization moving forward in that same path.”

Packer’s daughter Nicloe Demetrescu helped create the display and said they were moved by the department’s dedication to the memory of her father.

“We as his family are deeply touched and flattered his memory lives on so strongly in the department and the community,” she said.

The display cabinets are located inside the East Pierce Fire and Rescue offices but are open to the public. To see the display, ask at the front desk.