Busy Saturday afternoon and smoke started coming in the front door. I know our sales are smokin’ hot, but this was coming from the outside. Go out and find the median strip, that 2-foot-wide landscaped barrier in the middle of El Camino, has a little fire going.

Burning what though? It’s dirt! I go out there, along with a customer, and try to stomp out this little tiny fire that’s smouldering just below the surface. It kept coming back. In fact, instead of smouldering, we started getting small flames. What the heck? Tried covering it with dirt. Still keeps going. Finally had this unique idea… put water on it. Kevin brought a pail of water from the shop, and then Sergio, from the storage company behind us, brought out even-more water. Crisis averted!

Had we not acted, who knows what could have happened. This tiny little determined fire might have jumped across two lanes of traffic (not very likely), caught roofs of nearby buildings on fire (even less likely), and eventually set all of Redwood City west of El Camino in flames (ridiculously absurd to even type!). And my mom and her husband Robert caught in a firestorm of epic proportions as propane tanks explode throughout their neighborhood (there are none that I know of) and they can’t drive off because their car tires have melted to the ground. And even worse, this could have interrupted my planned ride tomorrow morning.

But none of that happened because a few brave individuals did their duty and put out that tiny little fire (which probably would have eventually burned out on its own). 🙂