As he moved toward the service lane, Celeste came walking fast from the mail kiosk. Several neighbors were gathered there watching the plume, and she appeared to have come directly from giving somebody instructions. Her cream-colored shoes were dusted gray and her hair had begun to escape its careful arrangement. She looked at the crew beside my tank and stopped as though she had discovered somebody preparing to move her furniture without permission.
"Excuse me," she called. "That tank is in violation of our homeowners association covenants. We have removal scheduled for tomorrow morning."
Morrow turned slightly but did not stop moving. Another vehicle had just pulled up, and Chief Warren Beckett stepped out with a radio in one hand and his helmet tucked under his arm. Beckett was fifty-nine, with a gray mustache and the steady movements of a man who had spent decades deciding which information mattered under pressure. He joined Morrow near the truck, listened, and looked toward the hydrant hose lying under strain in the lane.
Celeste walked into the space between them. She told the chief the tank had not been approved by the association, that the board had ordered it removed, and that nobody should assume it belonged there. She used the word permitted as if an HOA approval and a county permit were the same thing. Beckett let her finish only long enough to understand what she was interrupting.
"Removal?" he asked.
"Tomorrow morning," she said. "We've already arranged the contractor."
Beckett looked at the tank again, then at the fire just beyond the fences. He glanced toward the upper hydrant, where the supply crew was still working to stabilize flow. The expression on his face did not change much, but his next words ended the conversation. "Nobody touches that tank. Right now it's part of my water supply. Please get behind the apparatus and stay there."
Celeste started to say something about board policy. Beckett raised one hand, not rudely, and repeated the instruction to move behind the vehicle. A firefighter guided her toward a safer position where she could no longer interfere with the hose route. I saw her open her mouth once more and then close it when nobody looked at her.
The crew repositioned the engine with another firefighter walking beside the rear bumper. They connected their approved equipment to the tank's designated draft outlet, verified the supply, and established the flow through the pump before committing more water to the attack line. I remained outside the work area. I heard the engine change pitch when the supply stabilized, a sound I had listened for all my professional life and never expected to hear from my own driveway.
The first sustained application of water went toward the nearer spot fire. Firefighters advanced along the accessible portion of the fence line while another crew worked from the county lane on the second fire farther east. The wind kept shifting, sending bursts of heat and dust against the side of the apparatus. The crew did not fight in a straight line or a neat sequence, because fires do not offer that courtesy.