When the fire first broke out, a week ago Saturday, it was at a popular hiking trail off of Highway 24. It was not immediately close to any structures, but close enough to several small towns to call for evacuations just in case. By the next day, the fire had grown, but it seemed like the towns were mostly out of danger and most residents were able to go home, with the exception of one housing development called Cedar Heights. (Please keep in mind that this is just my account of the fire based on what I remember, and all details may not be completely accurate.) By Monday, there was still not any containment to the fire and I was a little worried about having to deal with the smoke when I went to work, but I never thought that the fire would spread to our city. I just made sure I had my inhaler, but the smoke was never bad enough that day for me to use it. I drove to Mesa Road on my lunch, which overlooks Garden of the Gods, to see if I could get pictures of the smoke, and I did. Several areas had been closed as a precaution, but there had been no more evacuations. The containment information didn't look promising, but from what I saw, everything looked like it was under control.
Tuesday morning was a little worse, but still didn't seem to be enough to really worry about. They had managed to keep the fire from spreading to the Cedar Heights development that everyone was worried about. The fire had spread and the smoke was worse (I had to use my inhaler twice) but I still went to Mesa Drive at lunchtime to take more pictures. I even got some good ones of the helicopters and the C-130 dumping retardant.
Little did I know what would happen just a couple of hours after these pictures were taken. I will post Part 2 tomorrow - I have to do this in pieces, it's just too emotional.
No comments:
Post a Comment