Fire fighters react to signs with humility

After the Charlotte Fire was out, a different kind of spark started flying in Mink Creek.

People started putting up ‘Thank you’ signs in their front yards, extending gratitude to the fire fighters who kept their homes safe.

There’s one that reads, ‘Thank you firefighters’ at the end of the Minors’ driveway. The thanks, because the family’s home is still standing.

“We just felt like, ‘Okay we’ll put up this sign and maybe they will see it,’ or we just wanted them to know how grateful we are to still have our home,” Rochelle Minor said with tears in her eyes.

Minor’s emotions are still high, because the family thought their house was gone.

“Seeing it come over the ridge and knowing it was just down the canyon and the sheriffs were evacuating people it was like ‘We’re not going to have a home tonight,'” Charelle Minor said.

But as the Minors were being evacuated, fire crews from across the state were heading in to fight the blaze.

Matt Huxtable was one of the firefighters at a house on Bannock Highway that looked like it would be consumed by flames. Firefighters were able to save it.

“We just stayed as long as we could, held off as much as we could,” Huxtable said.

Huxtable said he was just doing his job.

“Just do the best I can do, I guess, earn my paycheck,” he said.

Fellow firefighter Blake Roberts said they’re not just here during disasters, but anytime people need help.

“We’re more than happy to do that whenever we’re asked, so I don’t consider myself a hero, no,” Roberts said.

But for Rochelle Minor, who is in the middle of a fight against cancer, the word “hero” might not be enough.

“The day we moved in it took a lot of me, I was like, ‘I am so grateful to have this house, so grateful to have this house,'” she said.

The Minors also wanted to thank Western State Caterpillar for creating a dozer line around their property and their neighbors’ property.

The Pocatello firefighters credit the other agencies with helping to protect homes.

Investigators still have not said what caused the Charlotte fire.