Those who live in places such as Washington and Monroe counties know their local first responders are often doing the job because they love their communities — and for very little other reward.

They never know what they might encounter here. On Monday, the emergency was an orphaned well explosion inside the Wayne National Forest that injured six people — five of them critically. Responding to the scene were the Reno, Grandview Township, Sardis, Little Muskingum and Newport volunteer fire departments and the Marietta Fire Department. Once the flames were extinguished and injured workers taken first to Memorial Health System facilities and then by medical helicopter to other facilities, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the State Fire Marshal’s office are carrying out the investigation.

According to a report by the Environmental Defense Fund, there are 891 documented orphaned oil and natural gas wells in Ohio. At the time of the report, 62 of them were in Washington County.

As the effort is under way to plug them “to protect public health and safety, conserve natural resources and allow the efficient development of Ohio’s oil and gas resources,” according to ODNR, the workers doing so are taking some risk.

But a well explosion is just one of many possible emergencies that might occur here. Fortunately, as the departments that responded to this one proved, they are ready for anything. They are well trained, they are prepared, they respond quickly — and as they demonstrated when the scene proved too dangerous for reporters to get close, they are pretty good photographers when they know the public needs to see what has happened.

So, while we hope for the recovery of those who were injured, and know there are dozens more such wells here that will need to be addressed, we say thank you to the departments who sped to the scene and handled an unusual — and dangerous — situation.