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Cathedral City firefighter’s wife reacts to Thomas Fire

Some of our local firefighters are still battling the fires blazing throughout Southern California and with the holidays just around the corner, their families have to sacrifice time away from their loved ones.

Christy West, a wife of Cathedral City firefighter Rick West, who has been battling the blaze for about a week said it’s tough having her husband gone.

Rick left last Wednesday to train as a strike team leader on the fires in Beverly Hills, now he is working the Thomas Fire.

“So he’s on shift today they started at 5:40 this morning when he did this two days ago he started at 5:40 a.m. went the full 24-hours and then the day you’re supposed to get off typically you get off at 8 a.m. he wasn’t finished with his work until 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon,” Christy West said.

While Christy has seen Rick battle a number of fires, she said this one is the biggest.

“This is definitely the biggest one, I mean he’s been called out before, he’s gone out maybe two to three times in the summer, but this is certainly the latest. He’s never been out this late in the season,” said Christy West said.

With Christmas nearby, Christy hopes Rick will be home in time to celebrate with the family.

“This is actually a year where he’s off, he really is truly off, he’s not supposed to be at work but having him in that situation and wondering if he’s going to be home for Christmas is hard,” Christy said.

While she wants him home, she knows he has an important job to do.

“The reality of this is they’re trying to save people’s homes and it’s the time of year that it is and there’s a lot of people who have lost everything and the weight of that weighs on all of them.”

Christy said Rick is supposed to be home by Dec. 22, just in time for Christmas.

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