Out there in Santa Cruz, California, some folks have formed firefighting groups and armed themselves with buckets, shovels, water hoses, and gas pumps in order to fight off the raging flames that are trying to swallow up everything that folks have worked hard for.

“We got a gas-operated pump, like the kind you operate to drain a pool. One end goes into a well or pool, and we used that to put out spot fires,” is what Jaimi Jansen told the KTLA5 folks.

All of those wildfires, around there, have caused those spot fires to just BAAM, pop up! There’re spot fires right there. There’re spot fires over there. There’re spot fires everywhere.

A fella by the name of Gregg Schalaman , who’s a member of the Boulder Creek Boys, says his crew is finding spot fires in areas that the fire departments aren’t able to get to. “I was able to point out locations they were not able to regularly check on,” is what Gregg Schalaman told the KTLA folks.

Over 1 million acres have burned and under 50% of the fires are contained. Needless to say, folks have a lot of work cut out for them. California Fire Department Director Daniel Berlant, though, is warning folks that going up against one of Mother Nature’s strongest forces is not the thing for non-professional fire fighters to do.

Professional fire fighters have the proper equipment, training, and team to help them fight fire with water whereas normal people, unh-unh. “Our firefighters have equipment, communication and decades of experience, which allows us to battle dangerous fires.” Mm-hmm, see, the big man, Daniel Berlant , said what I said, mm-hmm.

You have to have the right stuff and whatnot in order to give that fire the proper beat down. Because if you don’t, the fire will beat you down, dead into the ground. And the last time I checked, being D-E-A-D is not cool, not cool at all!

What should the good hearted folks do, you ask?! The best thing to do is to let the professionals handle it. The last thing anyone wants is for civilians to get hurt or killed while trying to fight fires.

There have already been five deaths and those folks weren’t even trying to fight the fires. Therefore, the one thing we definitely don’t need is for firefighting civilian groups to add on to the tragedy. That’s just not cool dude, not cool at all! No sir!

Another thing that won’t be cool is if the good hearted firefighting civilian folks get stuck up by these scalawags who are roaming the burning fields, looking for stuff to steal.

Santa Cruz Sheriff Jim Hart has called in the unit, 100 officers to be exact, in order to deal with those thieving scoundrels. The sheriff’s efforts have led to at least five of those thieving devils, along with six other people who failed to heed the “WARNING-Do Not Enter” signs, being caught.

Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Roswell has let folks know that if they get caught stealing or entering prohibited areas they’ll feel the full power of his legal might that the state has bestowed upon him.