Well, it wasn't much of a 4th of July. I have a camera now with a "fireworks" setting and was getting ready to take some dramatic shots, but there are forest fires all around and the major fireworks never showed up. So, no fireworks pix. We always have people over to watch whatever fireworks do happen and someone brought this flag:



I went down to the bridge to see what all the lights and traffic were about. It turns out Alderpoint now has a volunter fire department with two yellow trucks, lots of young vigorous volunteers who are trained and ready to go, and a few equipment shortages.

A few of the AVFD people fought on the Paradise Fire, I was told. Our ex-chief John Earp was there as was Frannie, who hit me up for a donation the minute she saw me - which helps explain their excellent fund-raising. But I was a jump ahead of her. I reached into my back pocket and bought out not only my donation, but donations from a couple of folks up at my house, too.

I saw a couple other of the old timers from the volunteers of the 80s, when we had no trucks and no equipment except some Nomex suits, now providing elder wisdom to the young people who get to haul the hoses up the steep slopes trying to get ahead of the fire. I was quite impressed. The more so that they have done all this with donations and grants - no taxes even though we have a fire district now. They still have some needs: a defibulator (spelling?), straps for the strecher for carrying seriously injured people and undoubtedly more.

The range is Larrabee outside of Bridgeville up to Harris, where the Palo Verde volunteers take over.



I hope the Alderpillians reading this will support the volunteers. That goes for Bridgevillians, and folks in the Larrabee too. They are our only hope of keeping our homes if there are any local fires, summer or winter.

I stayed in Ukiah Wednesday night July 3rd, and the motels were full of firefighters. Here's the scene in the morning looking at the Best Western Parking lot. There were more parked in the neighboring business's area, but I'll bet there were no complaints about it.