Yesterday I had the unfortunate experience of standing on the sidelines while our Pearl River County firefighters battled not one, but two blazes in a single morning.

I say that experience was unfortunate not because I was upset to cover the story, but because I witnessed two buildings that were damaged by fire.

Yet it amazes me to see how quickly these brave men and women are able to extinguish a flame that could affect someone’s life.

I was at the first scene for no more than five minutes before being notified of a second fire elsewhere in the county.

After jumping back into my own red car, I reached the second fire within 30 minutes of it being reported.

I could see the frantic look on the faces of emergency personnel as they realized they had a long day ahead of them.

Yet by the time I got to the second fire it was mostly extinguished, with just a few hot spots popping up here and there and smoke still lingering around the roofline.

Despite being awoken at 4 a.m., our county’s volunteer firefighters answered the call yet again later that morning to serve their community any way they could.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten to the scene of a fire, in a manner that I think of as quickly, and the flames have already been extinguished by emergency responders on scene.

Despite being such a large county, the number of volunteer firefighters and stations often seems to meet the needs of the community when they have to make an unfortunate call for emergency assistance.

While they can always use an extra hand or an extra dollar for new equipment, our Pearl River County firefighters are doing a really good job to keep us all safe and prevent disasters that could easily escalate. Without them, we would be lining the streets to pass buckets of water to our neighbors.