RENO, Nev. (AP) — With a wind-whipped wildfire roaring through a Reno neighborhood, David Howton sprang into action with a garden hose and was lucky to save his home.
About a mile away, Scott and Mimi O’Brien weren’t so lucky. The home they recently rebuilt after it burned in an electrical fire less than two years was among five destroyed and more than two dozen damaged on Nov. 17.
霍顿（Howton）是一名前消防员，现在在里诺（Reno）教授四年级，他说，他的快速行动拯救了他的房屋，并可能是他的隔壁邻居，那里的火焰在霍顿（Howton）吐口水之前越过后甲板。
“It was the most convenient thing to use,” he told theReno Gazette-Journal. “So as soon as I went and got my garden hose, I was able to put out the fire.”
Howton left school that day and went straight home to save his shed after his wife, Marcia, told him their fence had caught fire.
Marcia Howton had gathered up their bunny and three dogs and went to her sister’s house about a mile away, where she was updating her husband on the fire.
David Howton admitted that, after hearing his wife and pets were safe, his thoughts turned to his shed.
“I don’t get as excited as some people do when there’s a fire because I’ve done that for my whole adult life,” said David Howton, who was a firefighter in Gainesville, Florida. “So when she said that fence was on fire, I was getting here to save my shed. I didn’t expect my house to be on fire.”
David Howton first found his back steps on fire. The fire had moved down the canyon, and his neighbor’s fence was on fire too. So he grabbed the garden hose and got to work.
他扑灭了台阶上的火灾，然后去了邻居的房子，迅速扑灭了燃烧的篱笆。
The whole incident took about 10 minutes.
霍顿说：“幸运的是，软管已经被钩住了，所以我能够抓住它，看到了这么多火，我知道它不会在两到三分钟内走到任何地方。”
There was no significant damage to the Howtons property and only minor damage to their neighbor’s yard and fence.
不远处，米米·奥布赖恩（Mimi O’Brien）那天在婴儿的房间里闻到烟雾，她告诉Gazette-Journal .
It was enough to make her stop folding the newborn pajamas printed with little gingerbread men and look out the window.
“You never will forget smoke smell once you smell it,” she thought.
奥布赖恩打电话给她的母亲，母亲告诉她不要担心。因此，奥布赖恩（O’Brien）试图忽略自己的想法。她环顾了托儿所，这几乎是在12月5日的到期日之前完成的。它是黑白与现代的。
It was the last room to finish in the new house. And in just two weeks O’Brien would be sitting in a chair rocking her baby.
Hours later, their house burned.
In 2018, an electrical fire started while the O’Brien family slept. They woke to neighbors, who had seen the flames, honking and banging on the door and garage. The back of the home burned. What was left was damaged beyond repair by water and smoke.
But there was never a question that they would rebuild. And they plan to do so again.
The house was in a perfect location for Mimi, who owns a nearby boutique, and Scott, a school district police officer. The house was less than a minute from her parents’ home, and her children would go to the same elementary school Mimi had attended.
In August they moved back in.
In the weeks and days before the fire, the family had unpacked the last of the boxes and hung pictures.
最新大火的下午，奥布赖恩听到了大声的警笛声。不久之后，一名军官在门口告诉她撤离。
奥布莱恩（O’Brien）为她的两个儿子中的每个儿子都抓住了丈夫的警察制服和一只毛绒动物。丹恩在学校。她把2岁的里德（Reed）和一家人的两只狗放在小型货车上，然后开车离开。
她说：“我只是知道什么时候离开，我没有回到家里。”
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