Making Time and Fighting Fires

It started with a move out to the country in the early 2000s.

After relocating just outside of Beggs, south of Tulsa, Mac Finlayson and his late wife, Lori, became friends with a neighbor who soon recruited Finlayson to work for Beggs Rural Fire Department.

“I’ve always believed that those of us who are doing well have a responsibility to help those of us who aren’t,” Finlayson says. “And if you need us, it’s certainly not a good day.”

For the past decade, Finlayson, senior counsel at Eller & Detrich in Tulsa, has served as a captain for the rural fire department. The department serves around 1,500 people in the town and surrounding rural areas.

At 74, Finlayson says he’s doing more administrative work “than actually crawling into burning buildings—I did my fair share of that.” But if he’s needed, he’ll get on the truck and go to a call.
On a structural fire call, involving a fire in a building, the captain will typically run what’s called an “interior or offensive fire attack” with two or three other firefighters shooting water out of a hose at the blaze, he explains. The captain and chiefs also keep tabs on the whereabouts of fellow firefighters and direct their activities. “Leadership is a big, big thing in the fire department,” he says.

Structural firefighting is just one of many events they respond to. Fighting wildland fires is another common job, typically between November and early March. Early this year, Oklahoma saw wildfires that destroyed 300 homes and burned more than 170,000 acres.

Mutual aid agreements with nearby fire departments mean Beggs rural firefighters may provide an extra fighter or tanker truck full of water, or they may bring a bulldozer or two to help fight fires in heavily wooded areas. “It’s not just like digging a pond. It’s much more complex when you’re cutting firebreaks and that sort of thing, and [the bulldozer] has to be equipped a certain way to be used for official firefighting,” Finlayson says. But they can be game changers. “If you get far enough in front of a fire and cut a break, the fire burns up to the dirt and has nowhere to go. Wildland fires need fuel, so without grasses and trees it can just burn out and die,” Finlayson explains. Bulldozers helmed by forestry workers during Oklahoma’s 2005-2006 wildfire season drastically changed the way they fought those fires, he says.

Though he no longer lives in Beggs, Finlayson still makes it down about twice a week to volunteer.
Finlayson has also led fire safety education efforts. His wife bred and showed Dalmatians, one of which was bought by fellow volunteer firefighter Dayna Hilton. Inspired by her four-legged friend, Hilton published the children’s book Sparkles the Fire Safety Dog in 2010. Finlayson invited Hilton to teach a fire safety class at Celia Clinton Elementary School.

It paid off almost immediately, Finlayson says. The Thanksgiving after the first fire safety class, two young students used what they learned to get their family members out of their burning home.

Now, firefighters from Finlayson’s department participate in an annual career day at Beggs Elementary School in which they talk about fire safety and careers.

Finlayson’s volunteer efforts extend beyond the fire department. He has served multiple terms on the Rotary Club of Tulsa’s Board of Directors, and in 2009 he was honored as its Rotarian of the Year. He chaired the Tulsa County Bar Association Pro Bono Committee from 2019 to 2024, and has been awarded both the Tulsa County Bar Association Neil E. Bogan Award for Professionalism and the Roger R. Scott Community Service Award. He also served as director, vice chair and general counsel of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame from 2007-2009.

He doesn’t always wait until a person’s home is burning before saving it. Finlayson says he’s especially proud of his work on eviction cases, part of his pro bono efforts. He spent several years representing people at risk of eviction who made too little money to hire a lawyer but too much to qualify for legal aid, and during the COVID-19 pandemic worked on a landlord-tenant handbook that now serves as a bench manual for some judges.

His work as a lawyer and his volunteer roles complement one another. He credits this mindset to a law school professor who described law as a profession — like doctors or emergency responders—that puts working for people ahead of personal interests.

“People say, ‘How do you find the time?” Finlayson says. “And my response is always, ‘You don’t. You make it.’”