Colorado Springs Apocolypse?! Waldo Canyon Wildfire 32,000 Evacuated, Many Houses/Buildings Burned!

reply to post by ManicDepresive1


Yeah, things have calmed down a lot. Here is the newest map. The black lines indicate areas of containment:

This is an amazing pic......

obama just landed... there gores traffic for next 5 hours....sigh.... 1 dead 1 missing ....just FYI

Originally posted by ManicDepresive1
This is an amazing pic......

edit on 29-6-2012 by ManicDepresive1 because: spelling

That certainly wasn't from the Waldo Canyon Fire; those P3 Orion Air Tankers from Aero Union have been grounded for months.

wildfiretoday.com...

wildfiretoday.com...

Most of the fixed wing air attack on Waldo Canyon has been from US Air Force Modular Airborne firefighting C-130s and Canadian tankers from Conair.

reply to post by Drew99GT


my bad it was on one of the news sites.

I don't know if anyone posted this video, but it illustrates perfectly what happened. The fire was burning at the top of the foothills west of town and a thunderstorm to the northwest sent an outflow boundary/gustfront to the southeast and blew the fire into town via 65 mph outflow winds. You can see the windshift at 15 seconds into the video and then the neighborhood ignites. I thought my house was going to burn down. I live just to the east of the area that burned.

reply to post by Drew99GT



Good video, it does show the moment the wind went haywire followed by all hell breaking lose. Was your area evacuated?

Originally posted by Yosemite Sam

Originally posted by Yosemite Sam

Originally posted by Doodle19815
Not to go too far off topic but, does anyone know of the lasting effects on nature of the fire retardant? Anything to save homes and lives should be used, but what is in this stuff?

Fertilizer, water, and red dye.

Oh, and a gel agent. Not sure what that is made of.

They also add grass seed to help nature's rebuilding process. Fire retardant is totally harmless and in fact is good for the forest.

Originally posted by Wookiep
reply to post by Drew99GT

 

Good video, it does show the moment the wind went haywire followed by all hell breaking lose. Was your area evacuated?

No; I live over by UCCS. When the wind shift happened and the mushroom cloud went up, i thought for sure the fire was burning on the ridge over by the Sunbird restaurant. I started spraying my house with a hose! I was FREAKED OUT.

reply to post by Drew99GT


Yeah the whole city was on edge for sure.. I did the garden hose thing too haha (can't hurt). Glad you weren't in the evac area tho.

Here are the Air Force Reserve C-130s with the firefighting equipment. They are instrumental in stopping the northward progression of the fire past Rampart reservoir.

Originally posted by Wookiep
reply to post by Drew99GT

 

Yeah the whole city was on edge for sure.. I did the garden hose thing too haha (can't hurt). Glad you weren't in the evac area tho.

I take it you were? Yea, Tuesday afternoon sucked! I was convinced the north side of town was going to burn down. Especially if the McCullough water treatment plant over in Pine Valley had to shut down or burned. That would have rendered all the fire hydrants dead on the north side of town. I'm guessing the helicopters made sure that didn't happen with water drops.

reply to post by Drew99GT


No, I wasn't in the evac zone, although I started getting concerned after Kissing Camels and Holland Park were evacuated. Thankfully, the fire didn't go far enough southwest to affect my area. (Other than heavy smoke)

*More evacuations have been lifted*

It's somewhat complicated because some areas are still blocked off due to utilities not being back on yet. Here is a direct link to this newest map: (shaded yellow areas still under evacuation)

media.graytvinc.com...

To download a larger .PDF, click on the link of the map below the video here:

www.kktv.com...

I can't believe it... But my house escaped unscathed, at least according to the news reports.
I am incredibly lucky and relieved.

ETA:
And of course I am deeply saddened for the people around me who were not as fortunate as I.

I am so relieved to hear people posting that the fire seems to have subsided a little....I was crying while watching the news Wednesday night....Today one of my co-workers told me her son will be in a wedding tomorrow in Colorado Springs...and I thought Oh My God...I didn't even think of that. So many people have their weddings in June and in places like Garden of the Gods, etc...and it made me think there are probablt so many untold stories we aren't even thinking about. Now I know a wedding inconvenience isn't like a house burning down or people and animals being injured or dying, but the point is that people's lives are being upturned in so many ways.... This is truly a tragedy.

Originally posted by xenthuin
I can't believe it... But my house escaped unscathed, at least according to the news reports.
I am incredibly lucky and relieved.

ETA:
And of course I am deeply saddened for the people around me who were not as fortunate as I.

edit on 6/29/2012 by xenthuin because: Addition

That's awesome to hear.

I hope they put that fire out and all but, the coors field burning down wouldn't be alllll that bad.... Rockies suck

reply to post by dayve


Well unfortunately for you, Coors field is about 100 miles north in Denver, so that's not going to happen with this fire.

This is my first time on ATS since the fire started almost a week ago. After some of the evacs were lifted last night, i was finally able to return home. I've been a Colorado Springs westsider for most of my life and couldn't imagine living anywhere else. But i definitely saw this coming. The mountainsides and foothills are extremely dry and filled with dead trees. I'm afraid its only a matter of time until we have a wildfire that threatens the entire town of Manitou Springs and even more populated areas of CS. As much as it would pain me to do so, i am considering relocating to a home further from the mountains.