Chris Smith: What our firefighters did down near the Soberanes fire

The gist of a long, sweet story by Kristin Ramsden of Monterey County’s Carmel Valley, a place too close for comfort to the fire terrorizing Big Sur, is that some angels wear the uniform of the Santa Rosa Fire Department.

“I felt very, very lucky that they found me,” she said.

The home Kristin shares with partner Max Arnold was in no immediate danger earlier this month, but the couple was needing an answer to a fire-safety question when the SRFD’s Engine No. 1 happened by. The crew was there, along with units from across and even outside the state, to patrol the flanks of the Soberanes fire.

A visiting friend of Kristin and Max flagged down the Santa Rosa truck.

The firefighters climbed out and answered the couple’s question. Before they left, Kristin said, one of them noticed there were dried leaves in the rain gutters and suggested that with a wildfire in the vicinity, it would be good to clean them out.

The Santa Rosans also took notice that Max’s mobility is impaired by multiple sclerosis.

“The next morning,” Kristin said, “There was a knock on the front door. It was the Santa Rosa firemen again.”

A member of the Engine 1 team asked if Kristin and Max had a leaf blower, and if the crew might use it. The firefighter explained that after they’d left the day before, he and the others on the truck talked about how it might be difficult for the pair to clear the fire-hazardous leaves from their gutters.

The crew did the job.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Kristin, who mentioned, too, that “not too long ago” she lived and worked in Santa Rosa.

To live in Carmel Valley and be protected like that by the Santa Rosa Fire Department, that’s the best of two worlds.

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HAPPY DAY, COLONEL: Jim Morehead, one of the greatest guys ever to call Sonoma County home, would have turned 100 years old this month. The people planning a public birthday celebration Saturday at Petaluma’s airport figure he’ll be there in spirit.

Co-host Leon DeLisle suspects also that the late Col. Morehead would appreciate that the 1 p.m. program, to be followed by a complimentary barbecue at Petaluma’s Veterans Memorial Building, will honor not only him but all who’ve served their country.

Gregarious and quite humble, Morehead earned two Distinguished Service Crosses, the nation’s second-highest military honor, for his valor and successes as a P-40 fighter pilot in both the Pacific and Europe. Read up a bit on him and you grasp why his wartime nickname was “Wildman.”

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BRYAN STOW, the Giants fan who survived a savage beating outside of Dodger Stadium in 2011 but lives with the limiting effects of brain damage, will speak in Santa Rosa on Aug. 27.

The Santa Cruz native is on a mission to counter bullying and fan violence. He speaks often at schools, but in Santa Rosa he’ll appear at a benefit with Tim Flannery, the ex-Padres player and former Giants third base coach.

Flannery‘s now a singer/songwriter and co-founder of the Love Harder Project, which raises money for victims of violence.

The nonprofit’s first beneficiary was Stow.

The pair will meet a small audience at 5 p.m. at Santa Rosa’s New Vintage Church. Tickets, available at Eventbrite, entitle guests also to a baseball barbecue by culinary all-stars Mark and Terri Stark.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.