Thousands of firefighters, right now, are battling the largest wildfire in Washington State’s history. And the last thing they need is to run low on water. And food. So when a call went out to KIRO’s consumer reporter, Jesse Jones, asking for help, Jones responded. KIRO is the Cox-owned CBS affiliate in Seattle. Jones called […]
Thousands of firefighters, right now, are battling the largest wildfire in Washington State’s history. And the last thing they need is to run low on water. And food.
So when a call went out to KIRO’s consumer reporter, Jesse Jones, asking for help, Jones responded. KIRO is the Cox-owned CBS affiliate in Seattle.
Jones called a local grocery chain, Fred Meyer, which filled a truck with much-needed food and water, and headed east to the Okanogan Volunteer Fire Dept, some 400 miles away.
(I don’t know how big the Seattle TV market is, but if you went west 400 miles from here in Philadelphia, you’d be past Pittsburgh.)
The Okanogan Volunteer Fire Dept. is headquarters for the thousands of firefighters, many of them local volunteers, struggling to put out the wildfires threatening homes and residents in the area.
“I’ve learned there are three separate needs,” says Jones.
“The immediate is food, water and shelter. The next wave will come when people return home and need to replace critical items. They’ll also need gas cards for travel and to run generators. After that things turn long-term like jobs and housing.”
The mayor says many in the community shed tears of joy when they saw the truckload of supplies arrive.
Click here to see a map of where the Washington fires are.
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