RED CROSS VOLUNTEERS HELPING OUT.(LOCAL/STATE)

Byline: Patty Allen-Jones STAFF WRITER

Steppingstones, a water heater or a washer and dryer are sometimes the only reminders of the houses that have been destroyed by wildfires consuming substantial acreage of East Florida.

"Most of them (the houses) were just totally destroyed," said Sarasota resident Betty Hutchinson, a Red Cross volunteer helping in Volusia County. "Even the siding melted on the house. . . . The water heater you might see, or you might see a washer and dryer standing there. . . . Sometimes there was a mailbox, and sometimes beautiful steppingstones leading up to what was a front door at one time."

Hutchinson is one of nine Red …