Thanking Firefighters

We are in the dog days of summer; a time for most people to get in last minute vacations to the beach and enjoy sleeveless weather for just a brief time longer before Mother Nature changes her mind and decides to wrap us in a blanket of snow. While the rest of us are enjoying these last vestiges of summer there's a group of men and women out there who are at their busiest this time of year, putting their lives on the line daily fighting range and forest fires. There have been several fires here in the Northwest this summer, most started by lightning or accidental causes but there have also been a couple of fires, one just this last week, that burned more than twelve thousand acres of rangeland and was started by suspicious means. If I live to be one hundred and ten, I will never understand those twisted people who find a secret pleasure in starting fires. The devastation caused by fire behaves like the ripples in a pond, destroying not only the land and vegetation, but any animals, humans, their homes and personal property in its path. Tragically, this is a threat that will never go away; thank goodness then for our nation's brave and self-sacrificing firefighters.