Fire All Around Us

These days I’ve learnt to really appreciate firemen and women.

Last week when we were in Quito, at Tumbaco Valley where we live, I witnessed several fires on the surrounding wood and crop hills. One of them was visible from my bedroom window, and I saw the hill burning during the morning to the night, to the next evening. The brigade finally managed to put out the fire.

Amazing! I’ve never seen such a fire so close to me, and it left me a very sad feeling, especially when I saw the small crops, almost ready for harvest, disappearing in a matter of minutes.

This weekend we were back home and again, fire and smoke were present in the area.

Firefighters got busy again.

But the most impressive events were on Sunday morning and evening. 3 relatively big fires were burning very near the populated area, so that by noon the valley was all covered with smoke.

According to a local newspaper, by September 14th there were 230 hectares burnt in Quito,  a matter of  weeks, fortunately with no tragic victims.

These relatively manageable events had got me thinking about larger fire tragedies around the world, and the courage of firemen and women. Isn’t it amazing how these people put their lives at risk to minimize damages when these events happen?

I would run away as quickly as possible, while these courageous people would run INTO the fire place and fight until putting it down.  I was thinking about this while watching the fire thru my window, and though we all are so blessed to have people like this in our societies around the world.
photo credit: nateOne

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