Nicest Place in America - Hayesville

From the Editors: “Thank you.” It gets left unsaid more often than it should. But when Hayesville, North Carolina, found itself on the receiving end of a Herculean effort to save the town from wildfires last fall, the residents’ collective gratitude echoed across the country.

The core of the emergency effort was lead by the Interagency “Hotshot” Crew, a team of federal firefighters who are enlisted to handle wildfires in remote areas with very little outside support. The fires ultimately spread over 10,000 acres in several counties, and it took the Hotshots weeks to control the blazes. Hayesville did everything it could to make the Hotshots feel at home. Carloads of provisions—from home-cooked meals and sports drinks to regular deliveries of lip balm for the firefighters’ parched lips—were dropped off daily at Hinton Rural Life Center, the Hotshots’ home base. Local schoolchildren wrote more than 2,000 thank-you notes. The residents prayed for the firefighters too.

“I cried multiple times that summer and fall over the generosity and bigheartedness of the community,” says Kayla Stephens, who has lived in Hayesville for 29 years and was one of the people who nominated the town. When the fires were put out and the Hotshots prepared to go home, the entire town turned out for a parade to thank them.

The Hotshots were so overwhelmed by the spirit of Hayesville that they made a thank-you note of their own, an emotional video filled with personal testimonies from the heroes who helped save the town.

“You guys do not know how much you mean, all the support you guys give us,” says Ron, a firefighter from Oregon, in the video, which you can see below. “Out of four years that I’ve been fighting fire, this is about the most hospitable state and county that I’ve ever been in.”