Firing Up Westport Volunteers

If you’re like many Connecticut residents, when you hear of wildfires in the West you think, “What a shame.”

Then — if you’re like me — you move on to news of the next catastrophe.

Michael Kronick and Robert Yost are doing more. Much more.

The pair — members of the Westport Fire Department — are actually fighting those fires.

They’re part of a 20-member Connecticut crew that’s battling the Black Fire in Idaho.

This is Yost’s 1st volunteer effort. Kronick, meanwhile, has served in the Western US several times, most recently last year in Northern California.

And that’s the key: It’s all volunteer. Westport’s firefighters are using their own vacation and time off to help save land and homes — and risking their own lives to do so.

Alert “06880” reader Steve Axthelm think that’s crazy.

“These 2 men are very courageous and generous,” he says.

“But don’t you think we as a town and community ought to sponsor them — at least in part — so they don’t have to use vacation or personal time to help out there? Wouldn’t it be a fair and appropriate contribution to the needs of our fellow Americans?”

It would indeed. If you’ve got an idea of how to make that happen, click “Comments” below.

Michael Kronick and Robert Yost are doing plenty. Helping them is the least we can do.