BurbankKarl, you have no idea how much the firefighters appreciate the generousity of the neighbours. They consider themselves fortunate to be able to serve such fine people.
My husband still tears up when he talks about some incidents where the locals brought by cookies, meat loaf, fresh bread, fruit. He still loves to talk about the elderly fellow who brought up a basket of fresh peaches that he'd picked for the FF's. The gentleman chugged up in a bockety Jeep, black exhaust billowing from the tail pipe's remnants and no plates, but he risked the ticket to bring them some of "life's blood."
And a few years ago during the floods, two elderly women trundled in all the way over from Crossover Road with a vat of steaming chicken soup and a tin of hot buns.
Those people may not know it, but those vats of soup and baskets of fruit feed the FF's souls, perhaps more than they feed their bodies.
Maureen
The Sage fire's cause is now known: it was someone conducting target practice. He's been identified, will be cited, might be held accountable for the cost of the suppression of the fire.