Larry Verducci looked at the smoldering hillside and realized just how “very lucky” they were. “It could have been a whole different scenario,” he said Friday. Verducci’s home and about two dozen others were threatened by a large brush fire Sept. 14. They were all ordered to evacuate. But then the “heroes arrived,” he said of helicopters from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and Department of Natural Resources. They dumped buckets of water on the blaze to keep it from spreading to any of the homes. “The calvary arrived,” he said. “If the choppers didn’t come we wouldn’t be sitting here talking right now.” DNR said they were able to keep the burn to about 3-4 acres because of that quick response. Evacuation orders were lifted about 6 p.m. Investigators are working to determine what caused the fire.