The Sixteen Springs Volunteer Fire Department is very active. When things happen, they are there. We all have to stay alert during the fire season because we could lose so much so fast.
I joined the minute I got out here, but then the pandemic hit, and my efforts to do my part had to take a back seat to just getting four teenagers what they needed without endangering the family.
This post is basically an affirmation of my commitment to get it all going again. To really be a member (of any service) I should complete thirty hours or so of computer training; I'd gotten about two hours into it and just petered out. It may be that I'm the kind of person that can't do self-motivated, online training without someone watching over me, slapping my wrist when I fail. But I've gotten absorbed in the business of being a writer, and just haven't got that stuff out in a while.
We know that the department is necessary, because a few years back a fire snuck up on Mayhill from behind and ended up burning hundreds of acres up by our way - if we go west, or even south, we come to a "burn scar" where literally everything was just burned up. ten years later, and it's still trying to recover. this may be the natural way that things always were up here, where it's real dry, and spring is the windy season, and fires can start from just about anything, but for the purposes of protecting our homes and families, having trucks and water ready, and the people to manage them, is at the top of the list of survival tactics.
My point is, I'm in. I'll do what I can to help. I'll tell all the mountain people to join your VFD; I'll try to do it myself. A few hours by a computer is nothing, in the big picture.
