Pender County

Pender county was a delight. We covered seven fire districts, and we ended up flying through them due to the excellent and timely scheduling done by the charming county ranger, Mr. Hagan. Again, we benefited from the close relationship that the county ranger and the fire departments share, helping us manage the scheduling, understanding and cooperation to complete the CWPP go very smoothly. Pender County is the neighboring county to where we live, so the drive out to the fire districts we relatively short compared to a few of the distant counties we have been previously. It has a history a wildfires, in fact, 5 years ago there was a 500 acre fire just behind our current residence that is still mentioned often when we visit the districts that fought that fire. We also met the Maple Hill fire department, our town’s namesake. Strangely, though, they do not cover our particular living location. In fact, no fire department covers our particular living location and we live in an area with a very high fire susceptibility index. Thank goodness its been raining quite a bit this year. One of the local treasures we found in this county was the World Famous Hot Dog restaurant, Paul’s Place – which also happens to be a Staging Area for Long Grady Creek fire district. Upon our final meeting with Mr. Hagan at the Forest Ranger station, we enjoyed a lot of laughs with the men working there, and we were given a lot of Smokey the Bear swag. The best of which was a bandana with Smokey’s likeness printed on it with his 5 rules of fire safety on it as well. We plan on wearing them on one of our upcoming hiking and camping hitches. Overall, Pender was a charming place with many very nice people and we are sad to see it go. It was a very pleasant place to work.