LAGUNA BEACH : Firefighters, School Trade Thank-Yous

Orange County firefighters, with engines and hoses ready for action, returned to El Morro Elementary School on Friday, but it wasn’t to battle another wildfire.

Firefighters, who only three weeks earlier had helped save the school from flames, came under much happier circumstances this time.

They returned to thank the 500 students and teachers for being well prepared for an emergency, and for letting firefighters use the school as command center during the Laguna firestorm.

They in turn received a big thank-you themselves from the excited youngsters during a special assembly.

“I think this is really fun because I was scared in the fire,” said Yesenia Lagunas, 10. “I’m so glad the school didn’t burn.”

About 100 students of the 2,400 in the Laguna Beach Unified School District lost their homes in the fire.

All the students were evacuated the day of the fire, while several classrooms were burned at Thurston Middle School.

Six school district employees also lost their homes.

Since the Oct. 27 fire, counselors from the school district and county mental health division have been helping children cope with the disaster.

The assembly Friday was just one more way to help.

“It’s neat to see that our school is OK,” said 9-year-old Ashley Maddocks.

Orange County Fire Battalion Chief Dan Runnestrand said he hoped the assembly would help children get something positive from the fire, and to feel a special bond with the firefighters.

“It’s helping the students and it’s really helping the firefighters,” Runnestrand said. “There’s so many of us who have been touched by this whole thing.”

The firefighters brought much more than their thanks.

They let the children check out their engines and other equipment, and even let them spray large hoses onto the hillside behind a playground.

The ceremony also brought firefighter Robert Salcido and second-grader Charlotte Goble together for the first time, the end of a mystery sparked by a thank-you note signed only, “Your friend, Robert the fireman.”

During the firestorm, Salcido had written a note to the girl, who he only knew as Charlotte, thanking her for letting him use her desk.

Thanks to a little detective work on Salcido’s part, the two finally learned each other’s last names.

As Salcido summed it up: “It turned out really good.”