Did my community service for the day! I was the fisrt to stop for a grass fire on the side of a country road out here in Central California. Lucky I was driving the Toyota (TRLNYOT) so I had my shovel in the bed. I was shovelling dirt and stomping flames like crazy. Was able to keep it to about a 15'x15' area. Only one other person stopped and he was a office duty Sherrif Officer. My wife Toni was trying to direct traffic because I was pushing/flipping burning grass on to the road. People barely wanted to slow down at first. Then they just slowed and watched. The fire department arrived in less than 10 minutes. As soon as I got home I jumped into the pool because I smelled like a stinky campfire. The pool felt good because it it over 100 degrees in the valley today!

My question is…… Why are so many people afraid to stop and help in todays world? What do you just let it burn until the fire trucks show up and it reaches some homes. I guess they feel that is the fire departments job?

100 years ago a whole town would come out to through buckets of water on a burning barn. Today 100 people will stand there and watch the barn burn to the ground.

The first question I asked my wife when we got back into the truck was “Did that make you feel good that we were able to help?”. I get a HIGH on doing stuff like that and it makes me feel good.

NOTE: This is a good reason to keep some of your trail gear in your Yota all the time!

For those that can't figure out TRLNYOT is the license plate on my Yota and it stands for "Trailin Yot". Everyone always asks what does your license mean? So now you know......

I’m done ranting now………………. Does anyonye feel the same as I ?

 

I feel just like you, helping people really makes me feel useful/accomplished. It's a great feeling. You did a good thing!

 

Using a shovel is a highly effective, traditional method for combating grass and wildland fires, acting as a key tool for creating firelines and directly suppressing flames.

 

Are you a real person or an AI bot?? Post padding? Every reply to threads make no sense, this is a 16 year bump to tell us about a shovel…..