For Ric Sanders, life’s blessings have come in the simplest of forms.

Since mid-August, he’s lived with the constant fear that the home he and his wife recently purchased in northeast Washington could be lost to encroaching wildfires.

But Wednesday night, though a threat still existed, life had started returning back to normal.

With fires still burning about three miles away, yet better contained, Sanders was back in his home in Republic with his wife and mother, eating dinner.

“It’s pretty relaxed,” Sanders said. “I haven’t had the sprinkler on the roof of the house on in about a week.”

Sanders’ harried life has improved in part through the generosity of a group of old friends and others from Whidbey Island.

Sanders, the park ranger at Curlew Lake State Park, said he and others in Republic and nearby communities were overwhelmed by the convoy of supporters from North and Central Whidbey that brought water, food and other basic necessities that had been collected through donations to give to firefighters and others in need in Ferry County.

Some of Sanders’ old friends from Oak Harbor organized the effort after hearing about the dire situation volunteer firefighters and displaced residents in Republic and Curlew were facing.

A U-Haul and five other vehicles from Whidbey brought trailer-fulls of items, including more than 500 bases of bottled water, on Aug. 29.

“It was incredible,” Sanders said.

It was also a little scary, according to those who made the trip.

The trip started with a blown tire of one of the trailers on Highway 2 at 3 a.m. near the top of Stevens Pass, said Ann Abrahamse.

The vehicles were able to reach the town of Republic by late morning, but the stay was short after a storm moved in with light rain and gusts of wind up to 50 mph, bringing smoke and ash into town.

Unloading was done in a hurry so the group could get back on the highway.

“It was pretty intense,” said Sandi Fox, an Island Transit bus operator who also made the trip.

“When the big gusts started coming in and the ash was coming down, you could tell some of the guys from Oak Harbor were getting a little freaked out,” Sanders said.

Sanders, a 1981 graduate of Oak Harbor High School and former park aide at Deception Pass State Park, has lived in Ferry County since 2001.

He was in Oak Harbor much of the spring to help his mother, Shirley Sanders,  move to Republic to live with him and his wife, Anita Sanders, in a home they purchased this year on a creek on 4.5 acres.

It is their first home purchase.

“We’ve always lived in park housing,” Ric Sanders said.

When the massive fires in the region threatened Republic, Anita Sanders and her mother-in-law stayed in a Spokane motel for a week to give Ric Sanders more peace of mind while he stayed at the state park in Curlew.

More than half a million acres have burned in Eastern Washington. Despite recent rains, the fires are still burning, but progress has been made in containment to relieve some of the anxiety, Sanders said.

Mike Hammett of Coupeville, a longtime friend of Sanders, was planning a second trip to Republic this weekend to bring more donations from the island.

Sanders doesn’t expect a repeat of the gusts he faced last time. Curlew Lake State Park has even reopened.

“I’m looking forward to the fall,” Sanders said.