Green Valley’s Heartfelt Thanks

The silence is suddenly broken by the rumble of huge fire engines--not arriving in haste, but departing slowly one by one through an eerie moonscape tableau down the once-bucolic San Francisquito Canyon. At the corner of my street, small children are waving and shouting, “Thank you, thank you, guys!” A few dogs begin to bark, a front door slams, someone calls to someone else across a fence. Two squirrels are sparring over a tidbit of whatever in my yard, and I can hear the blue jays voicing their approval of the tussle. Green Valley--the evening of the day after.

I’m taking the liberty of writing on behalf of all my neighbors in the small southwestern corner of Green Valley--mainly Calle El Parado and Calle Berro--two streets that emerged unscathed from the 3 1/2-day debacle that destroyed thousands of the most beautiful Angeles National Forest acres ever seen. From Copperhill north to Spunky Canyon, the devastation of nature’s finest effort is too expansive for the brain to comprehend. But here, on Calle El Parado and Calle Berro, it’s still a Norman Rockwell painting.

Why were we so fortunate? Well, we had the stupendous good luck of getting the strike team of Tim Wilson (Culver City Fire Department) and his band of merry firefighters! I wish I had gotten all their names, ranks, ages, etc., but what I did get was a safe home, a neighborhood intact and a gigantic new respect for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day fighting fires.

Thanks to each of you; a billion hugs all around!

Faith Burton

Green Valley