Black Forest Fire

When I sent my two little Cub Scouts off to camp on Tuesday morning, I never would have guessed the direction the week would take.

Shortly after 2pm on Tuesday the 11th, I was driving home from the grocery store and noticed a small black plume of smoke coming up from Black Forest (the photo I took of it made the news!).  It was right around the area where I was estimating the boys' cub scout day camp, organized and run by our LDS stake, was taking place.  I was a little concerned, so I checked the Facebook page of one of our local news stations, which said there was a wildfire burning near Black Forest and Shoup Roads.  Ummm, yeah, close to our boys, indeed!  I then texted a mom friend, Kristen, who I knew was volunteering that day and asked if everything was OK.  She said,  "We see the smoke, but they said we are OK to stay and the fire dept has it under control."  I replied, "OK, thanks.  I can see the smoke from our house.  It looks bigger than it is, I guess."  I sent her a picture of what I was seeing, and she sent me one of what she was seeing.

I was really uncomfortable with the situation.  I mean, the smoke was pretty abundant and seemed to be growing more so as I sat watching it from my car in the boys' elementary school parking lot, but I also knew that the stake primary leaders would get our scouts out if they were worried about their safety in any way.  Very quickly after that, I received a text from a friend, Jeannine, who is one of the young women leaders I serve with and whose grandson was at the camp that day too.  She asked if mutual was still going on as planned, because our activity was supposed to be at a park in Black Forest.  I told her we'd wait to see what happened, and then we texted a bit about thinking the kids should come home, but agreeing that they would be kept out of danger by their leaders if there was any.  Her daughter was in communication with day camp volunteers as well.  Fifteen minutes after my text with Kristen saying the firefighters thought they had it under control, Jeannine was texting me that the scouts were being evacuated from the area.

My first glimpse of the fire, taken from the boys' elementary school parking lot, located a couple hundred yards from our back gate, while I was driving home from getting groceries.  It was small enough that I may not have looked twice if my boys hadn't been over there in those woods!

This is the picture Kristen sent me when I first texted her, showing me what they were seeing from their location at that time.

Starting to panic!!  After I drove home and put away my groceries, I kept an eye out on the growing smoky mess.  This photo was taken from our backyard after I had heard the boys were being evacuated, but they weren't home yet.  When they got home, I got all teary and gave them several huge hugs, grateful for their safety.

Photos taken by my friend Jennifer, who was also volunteering at camp that day, as the cub scouts were evacuating from Black Forest.  TERRIFYING!

By 5:30pm this panorama shows that it was already huge...growing and moving quickly through the hot, dry woods.  This is taken from just across the street behind our house.

The fire is being blown to the southeast.

That was the beginning of three tense days for our family, our northern Colorado Springs community, as well as the city as a whole!  The Springs is very fire weary these days.  It was very nearly exactly one year ago that the Waldo Canyon Fire burned down into Colorado Springs, an event we watched in horror from our friends' home in Seattle where we were staying last late June.  If that felt close to home, this was like right next door.  The estimated start point for this fire was only a couple of blocks from where our little cubs were day camping; it's approximately six road miles from our house.  Black Forest Park, right around the corner from the epicenter of the fire, is on one of my longer run routes, I hit six miles about 200 yards before the park.  That makes it probably only about 3 miles away, as the crow flies.  TOO close! 

Our house, located in the Summerfield neighborhood, is situated at the top of a hill that overlooks a small valley before swooping up another hill that is just a bit lower than the one on our side of the valley, the hill opposite ours is the neighborhood of Pine Creek.  Pine Creek sits caddy-corner to the lowest-to-the-city edge of Black Forest, so we had an incredible view of events as they unfolded over the next few days...a vantage point that felt uncomfortably close to danger.  We watched as the smoke expanded across the dark green treeline, stretching ominously east, then we saw as the wind shifted directions and blew the fire back across itself, reaching into the forested area that looked like it was directly behind and beside the homes of several friends who live in Pine Creek and Gleneagle (northwest of Pine Creek).  We witnessed mornings when things looked almost normal, calm and quiet, however, upon looking more carefully, we could make out several small tendrils of smoke curling upward in the early day's sky.  We saw violent red fiery glows exploding into the night, and in daylight black smoke plumes bursting skyward, stark against the voluminous billows of white and grey, indicating that a structure had gone up, its inorganic matter burning darker than that of the trees.  We felt the vibrating thunder of the big helicopters and bombers as they flew almost directly over our home back and forth all day to the airstrip at Fort Carson where they were fueled and supplied with flame retardant.    

Wednesday's quiet morning with the smoke settled low, if it didn't smell so strongly of campfire, you might not realize the fire was even burning.

The Wednesday winds shifted, pushing the smoke and fire to the northwest.

Panorama with smoke stretching the length of Black Forest as the fire burns back across itself.

Luke watching the smoke hovering above the woods at twilight.

The bombers and helicopters flying over the fire and our house.

It seems just like a pretty sunset, however what looks like low clouds just above the horizon is actually smoke.

This photo of fire blowing up the woods behind the homes of Pine Creek was taken in the very same spot as the one above---once the sun went down the fire was visible from our house.  We were watching the news in the family room when the orange caught the corner of my eye through the gap in the trees.

 

Smoke lying dense and low across the North Springs.  It's thick enough that it's obscuring the mountains in the distance.  We forgot to close our windows Wednesday night in the upstairs part of the house, and it smelled terrible everywhere but the basement until the midday winds picked up and we could air out the smoky smell.  I made all the boys play in the basement until then.

A new structure alights.  It was so hard to see these black billows go up, knowing that more than likely it was somebody's home, containing all the life they had lived up to that point, all going up in flames.

The winds were in our city's favor and the fire was blown first southeast and then northwest and northeast, but never southwest, which is where the greater population and denser houses of Colorado Springs are located.  Still, today, Sunday, with the fire 65% contained and no longer expanding, five days from the day it began, over 14,000 acres burned, that's almost 22 square miles; 38,000 people had to be evacuated at some point, thousands more were placed on pre-evacuation or voluntary evacuation status; 482 homes were destroyed; and two lives were tragically lost as they attempted to evacuate too late.  Many members of our church family lost homes; everyone seems to know someone who did.   It was heartbreaking and terrifying.

Fearful, anxious, nervous, stressed, helpless, distracted, tense, numb, exhausted.  These are the emotions and feelings we experienced over the three intense days of the fire.  We are now just starting to let it go a little.  The boys were surprisingly calm through it all.  They told me I was worrying enough for all of us, so they didn't need to, but I could hear nervousness in their questions.  I think as long as they were informed when they wanted information and knew Adam and I were on it as far as our family went, they were OK.  After the second day, although we were never placed on pre-evacuation status (the closest pre-evacuation line was probably about a mile away), I put together two laundry baskets full of scrapbooks and other irreplaceable items, which made me feel a little better.  The mornings were the worst time of day for us, because the air was still and the weather inversion pushed all the smoke down low around our homes.  It smelled like we had had a campfire INSIDE the house, and in my lungs I could feel the heavy smoke in the air when I breathed.  And the second night, when we could see the fire bright and wild...that was a bad night. 

But, as with any tragedy, amid the frozen shock and heartbreaking loss, the very best sides of all of us in our community came shining forward.  I think all communities find themselves bonding over tragedy and everyday heroes rise to the occasion, but Colorado Springs, we really do "community" well.  The first day in, I joined the Black Forest Fire Facebook group so I could see regular postings of updates on the fire.  While the page did provide information of that type, it also became a forum for people who had the ability and resources to help to extend those things, and for people needing assistance to reach out for aid.  There were offers of trailer use for horses and other large livestock evacuation, homes open for evacuated pets to stay, drivers who were willing to go help the elderly needing evacuation assistance, citizens organizing hot dinner delivery to those living out of their RVs in the Walmart parking lot, volunteer groups that were FBI background-checked for security who would come in and help you sift through the ashes of a lost home--seeking anything that might remain, stores and businesses who were offering food and aid to the first responders, people offering a bed to sleep in, announcements on where you could find help if you needed it, and information regarding where you could lend help if you were inclined to give it, and on and on and on.  If you needed it, there was someone offering it. 

Then there were the stories, videos and photos of the first responders: the firefighters coming in from cities all around and multiple states, the National Guardsmen and women, the Air Force firefighters, the aerial support from the helicopters and bombers, and all the police helping to control the safety of the situation and keep people's homes safe while families were evacuated.  Saying we Colorado Springers have a little bit of hero worship going for our first responders would be a total understatement.  They are amazing, courageous and heroic.  We love them!!!  There is a prediction that in 15 to 20 years it will be hard to land a job in the Colorado Springs Fire Department because so many kids, who have admiringly watched these phenomenal men and women fighting fires over the past two devastating fire seasons, will now grow up wanting to become firefighters themselves.  It is a dangerous, difficult and selfless job, and "thank you" just doesn't feel like enough to say how grateful we are for those who have served our community.  But "thank you" will have to do.

*The photos below I did not take, I got them from Facebook.

Thursday afternoon, relief arrived from the heavens.  It rained!  We hadn't had a good afternoon thunderstorm for a week when the fire broke out.  In the Colorado summer, we can get days where it looks like it could rain, but then it doesn't...thunderstormy but dry.  That happened on the Wednesday of the fire, which was disappointing.  Even Sheriff Meketa, Thursday morning joked that everyone should wash their cars and the park them outside, because that was sure to bring the rain.  I think the entire city was praying that one of these dry storms would actually break, but it wasn't expected in the forecast.  The weathermen had been urging people to not get their hopes up, that we could see only a few drops, and that they might evaporate before ever reaching the ground.  Thank God for unexpected blessings!  I truly believe that the rain was an answer to thousands of prayers.  The rain helped the battle turn the corner.  It really rained!  A nice, strong burst that went on for about a half an hour, not so heavy that it all ran off, not so light that it didn't make a difference.  After two days of great loss, then a day of stalemate, finally, with the rain, came the one-two punch.  The firefighters had been battling hard, and the moisture was just what they needed to really make the push toward containment.  The containment numbers that day went from 5% to 35%, and then quickly up to 45%.

Friday afternoon our stake organized a clothing drive that was to take place Saturday morning.  I was SO grateful for some way to help--and for an excuse to get away from the constant news broadcasting from which I was having a hard time detaching myself.  People were invited to drop off their gently used clothing items in the morning, and then in the afternoon families who were displaced or lost everything in the fire came in and took any clothes they thought they'd need, all for free.  The response was INCREDIBLE, especially considering that the first word went out about 4pm on Friday evening!  In a few short hours on Saturday morning there were mountains of clothes...seriously!  At one point, as we volunteers sorted and folded clothes as quickly as possible, I looked out into the hallway.  There were bags lining the wall, stacked three tall and two deep, stretching in a line from the gym door to the entrance door.  It was clear that people wanted to kick that helpless feeling to the curb and DO something to help.  Even if it was something small, like donating some clothing.  Everyone wanted to help in some way, any way, and when an opportunity presented itself, people came out in droves. There was such a great response that more pick-up hours were added over two more days next week, for families to come in to get clothing if they didn't get the word on Saturday.  After that, all the leftovers will be donated to a local charity, Care and Share.

I think we are all still a little shell-shocked.  We are emotionally exhausted, feeling like we've been holding our breath all week with our eyes wide open in disbelieving horror.  Helping at the clothing drive yesterday helped a little bit, even if hearing the stories and seeing the lost and overwhelmed look on the faces of those who came to get the clothing was heart-wrenching.  Getting back into our routine has also helped, we have a lot coming up in the weeks ahead that have nothing to do with scary fire and everything to do with fun summer vacation memories in the making.  Although there is a guilt to embracing the normalcy too, knowing that there are those for whom "normal" is a long way off, and will never really be quite the same.  Having the continuous fire coverage on all our network stations come to an end yesterday was liberating.  It's hard to explain, but I felt compelled to watch, and it was difficult to turn off.  Looking out across the small valley, seeing Black Forest from a distance, the beautiful view looking like it always has, without smoke rising to the sky--unless you are looking really carefully and at the right moment--well, it's like we can finally exhale.