INTERLACHEN, Fla. \u2013 As brush fires continue to burn across parts of Putnam County, one local woman found a simple way to say thank you to the firefighters working long hours to keep flames from spreading: cupcakes.<\/p>\n
After watching fire crews battle the blaze day after day, Rachel, an Interlachen resident and owner of Bee-Very Happy Soap Company<\/a>, decided she wanted to do something to show her appreciation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been watching them for days, putting out the fire morning, noon, and night,\u201d Rachel said. \u201cI wanted to bring coffee out, but they said no, so I just thought of cupcakes. Everybody likes sweets. So I got to work and started making them.\u201d<\/p>\n The gesture comes as crews continue to deal with smoky conditions caused by fires that started from an escaped burn pile<\/a> and spread quickly due to dry, windy weather. The smoke has led to road closures, school disruptions and concerns for people living nearby<\/a>.<\/p>\n Putnam County baker shares homemade cupcakes with firefighters amid ongoing brush fires (WJXT)<\/p>\n For residents like her, the situation has been unsettling.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a little scary, because I have a wooden house, so I didn\u2019t know what to do to prepare,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I got my hose out so I can have water in my house, put my pets away \u2014 it\u2019s all I could do.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the fear, she said watching firefighters work around the clock has brought reassurance, and baking felt like a small way to give back during a stressful time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s scary, the whole thing is,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s starting to get better, and we are hoping to get rain tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Fire officials continue to monitor conditions and remind residents to follow safety guidance as crews work to contain the fires. For now, a box of homemade cupcakes serves as a reminder that even small acts of kindness can mean a lot during difficult moments.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INTERLACHEN, Fla. \u2013 As brush fires continue to burn across parts of Putnam County, one local woman found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[502,69901,116,118,117,34927,10782],"class_list":{"0":"post-144149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-community","9":"tag-fires-responders","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","12":"tag-jacksonville-news","13":"tag-putnam-county","14":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}