LAKE ARROWHEAD - Two weeks after evacuations were lifted for the Grass Valley and Slide fires, at least 200 mountain residents turned out Sunday at a community celebration to honor those who had fought to save their homes.Taking Mountainwide Appreciation Day to pay thanks to firefighters was an appropriate way to start off Thanksgiving week, said Rod Akins, pastor of Church of the Woods.
Akins, who said he had lost three homes - to tornado, flood and fire - said tragedies were a time to take inventory of what really matters.
"And people matter,"
Residents give law-enforcement and fire personnel a standing ovation during Mountainwide Appreciation Day at Lake Arrowhead Village on Saturday. The event gave mountain residents an opportunity to give their thanks to members of the agencies that fought the recent fires in the San Bernardino Mountains. (Gabriel Luis Acosta/Staff Photographer)Akins said.
"Let's hear it for the people who protected, preserved and gave us back our mountain," said community leader Glenn Goodwin, as the audience gave standing ovations to firefighters who braved the flames.
And many members of the San Bernardino County Fire Department, the U.S. Forest Service, Running Springs and Arrowbear fire departments, the Crest Forest Fire District, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, San Bernardino County Search and Rescue, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and California Highway Patrol who had worked the double blazes were on hand Sunday.
Chris Perry of Crest Forest Fire, who fought from several vantage points on the Grass Valley Fire, said it was difficult having to pick and choose which homes to save when so many were at risk, he said. Still, he stood the lines with those who tried to save homes on Brentwood Drive in Lake Arrowhead.
"The fire was nondiscriminating," said Melissa Astle, a teacher in Lake Arrowhead who came out to show firefighters her appreciation. "It took what was in its path."
Astle, who lives near Mountains Community Hospital, said she was fortunate her home didn't burned, since she was sandwiched between the two fires at one point.
Jim Schaffer of Lake Arrowhead, who had lost his home in Cedar Glen to the Old Fire four years ago, said he made chili for firefighters on the most recent blaze.
"What they wanted was socks and underwear," Schaffer said of firefighters on the front lines. "I passed out 37 pairs of socks - my socks."
On Sunday, as he showed his thanks, Schaffer said, "It brings tears to my eyes." During the fire, he said he had counted up to 200 fire engines pass by his home on Highway 173.
"They're my heroes," he said.
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