A Fire Story

Everyone probably has a story about the Lilac Fire. Here is one about an unsung hero who was giving back.

Near the epicenter of the Lilac Fire at the intersection of Highway 76 and Highway 395 there is a business. You may have seen it from Interstate 15 while you were traveling north to Temecula or going south to Escondido. This business is a convenience store, called Circle K. During the fire and evacuations, it became a safe haven for the fire crews, the news teams, and the displaced residents, including senior citizens.

There is employed there a manager who worked all shifts during the fire. Although she and her family had been evacuated, she believed her store needed to be open to provide services to the fire and news crews, to the stranded, to the hungry, and to the displaced. So after a couple of hours of sleep following her shift, she tried to reach her store, she was denied access to Highway 76. Although she was in uniform with her name on a Circle K ID badge, she still had to convince law enforcement of her identity and purpose. Since her employees had been turned back at the highway checkpoints when they tried to work their shifts, she believed she needed to cover those shifts herself.

She said the fire crews came in after their duty shifts ended dusty, tired, thirsty, and hungry that couldn’t wait to nuke their burritos so they ate them cold. She provided free coffee to everyone and helped a senior citizen who had nowhere to go after his home on Rancho Montserrat was burned down. She cried when she saw him coming with his walker after the firemen dropped him off. She hurriedly brought out a chair, a blanket, and some water. She waited with him until someone picked him up to take him to an evacuation center.

Circle K, you have a great representative of your company to the community, and this manager is named Penny Bader.

Deborah Nickel