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Triad Firefighters Home in Time for Thanksgiving

As fires rage out west, some local fire teams are coming home just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

PLEASANT GARDEN, N.C. -- As fires rage out west, some local fire teams are coming home just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Last week, 2 Wants to Know's Chad Silber rode with teams from Pinecroft Sedgefield and Pleasant Garden when they responded to the Party Rock Fire in Lake Lure.

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Silber was there Monday night as some of those firefighters came home. Needless to say, it's good to be home.

"It was definitely an experience that a lot of us in our lifetime will never be able to see again with a scene of that magnitude and that complexity," said Pleasant Garden Fire Lieutenant Daniel Holt.

Holt and two others from Pleasant Garden are back from a six-day mission battling the Party Rock Fire. "We would go out at night and literally protect structures,” said Holt. “We would watch fire lines around the structures that they had already cut earlier in the week."

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The icing on top of this homecoming cake, handwritten thank you notes from Pleasant Garden Elementary.

"Thank you for your service to put out the fires,” read Holt. “You are our heroes."

"Welcome home dad and this time we all miss you,” read Pleasant Garden Firefighter Michael Fuhrman. He found the card his daughter wrote.

"This is great, I love it," Fuhrman said after reading the letter.

It’s a much different emotion from last week when he told us his daughters were upset he had to go out west. Through the tears, they bought him bandanas to protect him from smoke.

Now, he's finally coming home. "It's real good,” admitted Fuhrman. “It was a lot of work, a lot of things I learned and we're doing pretty good and I'm glad to be home, it was a long week."

RELATED: Triad Firefighters Help Battle Wildfires

Being able to spend Thanksgiving with the family is what they're most thankful for.

"Definitely miss them, definitely ready to get home,” said Holt.

They're not out of the woods yet. Firefighters could be called back to help fight other fires if they get worse.

Not all Triad firefighters are lucky enough to be home. The team we met last week from Pinecroft Sedgefield Fire is still there and could be sent to another wildfire before they come home.

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