Waldo Canyon Fire - Part 3

For the next two days after the fire, I was in complete shock. The area that I worked in was under mandatory evacuation, so I couldn't go to work. This left me sitting in front of the TV watching hours and hours of new footage on the fire. It was devastating. I couldn't do anything else.

I still couldn't believe how close I had been to the area that was burning. The videos of the houses burning were heartbreaking. I was worried about my job and then felt guilty. People were losing their homes, while I was sitting safe & sound at home worrying abut my livelihood. Several times the smoke was so thick, even at my house 30 miles away, that it was hard to breath and I couldn't go outside.

I was home alone with my 5 year old, who was scared but didn't really understand too much what was going on. My husband and oldest son both work out of the area, which makes it harder. Whenever we aren't together and something like this happens, my mind starts imagining all the bad things that could happen to them. Fortunately, my oldest was able to come home the second day I was home, which did help. I was comforted by the fact that we were together and I knew he was safe.

Thursday night, they lifted the evacuations for my workplace and I got the call that we would be able to go back to work on Friday. I was so relieved! I had been so worried about the fire getting the office or having to shut down for much longer. It had taken me nine months to find this job and I loved it; I didn't want to go through the whole unemployment process ever again.

Friday, the rebuilding started, for some of us. We went back to work and got everything running again. The building smelled of smoke, but nothing had been damaged. Four of my coworkers and their families had to be evacuated from their homes due to the fire, but none of them lost their houses. They also came back to work on Friday, even though they couldn't go home yet. Listening to their stories just reinforced how lucky they had all been. None of them had to go to the shelters; they were able to stay with friends. Most didn't even have smoke damage. Many of the roads in the area were still blocked off, and it seemed a little like a ghost town. But it felt so good to be active, instead of sitting around, wondering whether everything was going to be OK or not.

Every day since then has been better and better. Most of the evacuations are now lifted and we are finally getting some rain. Of course, this means we have to worry about flooding in the damaged areas, but it's still better than the alternative. There was a wonderful benefit concert at the World Arena, which I was able to watch on TV. The community really came together to help out and acknowledge how amazing these wonderful firefighters have been.

It's nice to not worry about the fire every minute now. Then I remember the people who lost their homes or loved ones and feel guilty again...

Waldo Canyon Fire - Part 1

This has been an absolutely heartbreaking and devastating week for those of us in Colorado.  The Waldo Canyon fire ravaged several neighborhoods in our beautiful mountain side community of Colorado Springs, killing 2 people and incinerating 346 homes. This is only one of many fires happening in our state. It sometimes feels that the whole world is on fire.

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.