In case you haven’t peeked outside in the last few days or even done so much as breathe, two wildfires are ravaging through southern Utah County, scarring hundreds of thousands of acres of once-beautiful forest land.

The Pole Creek and Bald Mountain fires, which merged this week into one fire, have burned more than 100,000 acres. Thousands have evacuated from Elk Ridge, Woodland Hills and many areas in the southern canyons like Spanish Fork and Hobble Creek canyons.

There’s no denying this is a scary situation, and many evacuees have been told they won’t see their homes likely for at least another week.

But in such dire straits, Utah Valley has shown its true colors and has banded together to support those who’ve been affected by the fires.

It seems like every day, we hear of acts of charitable giving, anonymous or otherwise, to support those who feel rather helpless. For example, a local couple was supposed to have wedding festivities in Woodland Hills, but the fires forced them to change their wedding day plans last minute, moving venues and being forced to find wedding suppliers last minute. But several local residents came to the rescue with a venue, food and even a DJ.

Many restaurants and businesses opened their doors to provide free food and services for evacuees from the fires.

And on Sunday, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox encapsulated Utah’s charitable nature fairly well in a tweet. He said, “Update from the Red Cross noting a few problems: 1) Big waiting list…of people that want to HELP and provide shelter for others. 2) TOO MANY donations. Please stop for now. 3) 6,000 people evacuated and no one staying at the shelter. Well done Utah. Well done.”

We echo Cox’s statement. We could not be more proud to be part of a more charitable, more giving community as we are here in Utah Valley.

We’ve also been impressed with the patience exhibited by those affected by the fires. We’ve heard numerous stories from our reporters in the field of residents who, rather than complain about their circumstances, are patient and involved with the fire crews and incident management teams working their hardest to battle back the flames and protect homes and structures under threat of destruction.

There are outliers in this, as would be expected, and we completely understand that this is a stressful situation that could impact people’s livelihoods for years to come. We hope that this worst-case scenario does not become a reality and this fire does not cause any damage to structures.

For the time being, it seems it is primarily impacting the beautiful landscapes and panoramas we take such pride in here in Utah. Spanish Fork Canyon has had a particularly rough summer, with the Coal Hollow Fire practically still warm and firefighters directing the Pole Creek Fire toward the Coal Hollow Fire burn scar.

But with as large as these fires have become, and continue to grow, it begs the question of what could’ve been done to prevent these disastrous situations and how they can be prevented in the future.

Many people have pointed out that the U.S. Forest Service was aware of and was monitoring both fires when they were started by lightning at the end of August and beginning of September.

Spokespeople from the Forest Service have said that the Bald Mountain Fire was inaccessible when it first started in August. And 70 firefighters were on the Pole Creek Fire shortly after it started in September. But the Pole Creek Fire got away from them and jumped the fire line, and the Bald Mountain Fire was in such an area that Forest Service officials didn’t predict it would spread.

We understand that each situation is different and unique; we don’t want to say that if they had 71 firefighters on the Pole Creek Fire that it wouldn’t have gotten away from them. But we hope that the Forest Service assesses what preventive measures can be taken in the future.

We thank the firefighters, personnel and our community as a whole for the tremendous response and outpouring of charity in response to these devastating wildfires. It speaks volumes of the character of this community and reminds us why we’re proud to be the voice of Utah County.