http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20962119/colorado-wildfire-waldo-canyon-fire-officials-confirm-hundreds
32,000 people remained evacuated in and around Colorado Springs.An aerial photograph of the Mountain Shadows neighborhoodtaken Wednesday showed houses, all of them inside the Colorado Springs city limits, reduced to charred rubble.
fire started June 23 and has grown to 18,500 acres. The blaze's cause is not known, andthe FBI has joined the investigation.
mandatory evacuation orders, along with parts of northwest Colorado Springs, the Air Force Academy and unincorporated Teller County.
and.....
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20957092/tens-thousands-remain-homeless-wake-waldo-canyon-fire
of a front page photograph was his five-bedroom home, obscured by trees and fully engulfed in flames.
Charlie Drennan, division chief of operations for the Denver Fire Department, one of 13 fire departments from around the region that were helping out on the fire.
mile away and moving fast.
Colorado wildfire: Waldo Canyon fire destroyed 346 homes
An aerial photograph taken Wednesday of the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs shows the destructive path of the fire. See additional aerial photographs at denverpost.com/mediacenter. (John Wark, johnwark.com)
The Waldo Canyon fire made a run into Colorado Springs on Tuesday night. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)
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COLORADO SPRINGS — Mayor Steve Bach told an afternoon news conference that 346 homes on 35 streets have been destroyed by the Waldo Canyon fire, making it the most destructive fire in Colorado history.
In a bit of good news, officials announced that a considerable number of evacuees would be allowed to return to their homes beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday. Evacuations are being lifted for an area west of Interstate 25 and south of Rockrimmon. Cedar Heights, Rockrimmon, Mountain Shadows and Peregrine remained on mandatory evacuations.
Police warned people to go home in an slow, orderly fashion. There was no estimate available on how many people were being allowed to go home.
Before the announcement, some
MULTIMEDIA: WALDO CANYON FIRE
There will be meetings tonight at 8 p.m. with the impacted homeowners where they will be shown a map of the area. Buses will bring residents to the meeting from the evacuation centers.
It is expected that some mandatory evacuations on the eastern perimeter will be lifted; more information will be released about that at 6 p.m.
Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey said he anticipates a spike in crime in affected areas. He confirmed one burglary arrest was made Thursday morning. He also noted that some reported damage could have been made by first-responders in their efforts to save lives and property.
"All over the city people have taken in strangers and friends of friends of friends," Bach said. "Everywhere we turn, people are helping people."
Lt. Jeff Kramer, an El Paso County Sheriff's Office spokesman, said Thursday the U.S. Forest Service is eager to get word from incident command so officials can get into the burn area and start the investigation. He says there is no indication at this time of arson.
Firefighters have a containment line around 10 percent of the burned area. No injuries have been reported.
Officials say 20,085 homes and 160 commercial building are threatened and are in the fire's path. The cost to date of the fire is $3.2 million.
Fire officials said higher humidity levels, some rain and less winds helped firefighters on Thursday.
"We made significant progress on the ground today," Jerri Marr, a U.S. Forest Service supervisor, told an afternoon news conference.
Today was the best day for weather since the fire started, she said. Firefighters made the most progress on the north and northwest side, where firefighters were on the ground.
U.S. 24 is closed from Cave of the Winds to the county line and will remain that way through the weekend. Garden of the Gods park, the Pikes Peak Highway and cog railroad and the Air Force Academy area all closed to visitors.
The communities of Cascade, Chipita Park Green Mountain Falls and Crystola are under
Diane Doren points to the spot on a map where her home is located. Doren was evacuated from her home Saturday after the Waldo Canyon Fire started. (Jordan Steffen | The Denver Post)
The Red Cross has set up evacuation centers at Lewis Palmer High School, 1300 Higby, Monument; Cheyenne Mountain High School, 1200 Cresta Road, Colorado Springs; Southeast YMCA , 2190 Jet Wing Drive, Colorado Springs; and Summit Elementary School, 490 Meadow Park Dr., Divide.
Diane Doren brought a map to Thursday morning's news conference. She can point to the exact dot that represents the Cascade home from which she evacuated Saturday.
"Huge, ugly, black clouds of smoke," Doren said. "When you step out of your front door and there's smoke, it's absolutely terrifying."
She has spent the last five days in a hotel rooming waiting for news and updated maps. Doren was evacuated during the Hayman Fire in 2002, and said the feeling of not knowing is all to familiar.
"Part of the frustration is knowing it's out of our hands," Doren said. "We're standing here watching and knowing it's up to someone else."
Doren's home is north of Highway 24 and about five miles from Manitou Springs. While she knows her home is still standing, she believes that the flames came within 300 feet of her back door.
Firefighters were on that line Saturday, and they are still working Thursday.
Incident commander Rich Harvey told the Thursday afternoon news conference that he's "feeling confident" with Thursday's minimum fire growth and firefighters in good positions.
More than 1,200 firefighters were working the fire Thursday, Harvey said. There were 27 crews and 73 engines, along with helicopters and plane.
"We have resources on this fire from an alphabet soup of agencies," he said. "Our resources have wheels, they have tracks, they have rotors, they have wings."
and.....
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20957092/tens-thousands-remain-homeless-wake-waldo-canyon-fire
Colorado wildfire: Aerial photo shows about 300 homes destroyed in Waldo Canyon Fire
Tens of thousands remain homeless
An aerial photograph taken Wednesday of the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs shows the destructive path of the fire. See additional aerial photographs at denverpost.com/mediacenter. (John Wark, johnwark.com)
Homes and hills above Colorado Springs smolder Wednesday. The Waldo Canyon fire has left tens of thousands of residents homeless.(Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)
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Tens of thousands of people remained homeless in Colorado Springs on Wednesday, fixated on the smoky hills as the weather helped slow a Waldo Canyon fire that left a stunning path of destruction in its wake. An aerial photograph of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood that was taken Wednesday showed approximately 300 homes, all of them inside the Colorado Springs city limits, reduced to charred rubble. Colorado Springs authorities would not confirm exact numbers, saying they were still making assessments and devising a way to convey the information to affected homeowners.
One of destroyed homes belonged to Ted Stefani and his wife, Kate. He learned its fate when he picked up The Denver Post on Wednesday. There, in the lower left corner
PHOTOS: WALDO CANYON FIRE
"It's a good and bad thing," he said. "It's bad, because our house is gone.
"But at least we know."
The blaze, one of nine major wildfires burning in Colorado, continued to attract national attention Wednesday. The White House announced that President Barack Obama would visit the area Friday, when he is expected to tour the damaged neighborhoods and thank firefighters.
The blaze's cause was not known Wednesday, and the FBI joined the investigation, which was in its earliest stages.
The four-day-old fire that had grown to 18,500 acres smoldered throughout Wednesday, but cloud cover and shade from the smoke kept ground temperatures cooler than on previous days.
Firefighters had a containment line around about 5 percent of the burned area.
Late-afternoon winds fed by a nearby thunderstorm sent firefighters running for safety in the hillside neighborhoods they were protecting. But those gusts, which reached at least 20 mph, did not blow the fire into anything like the catastrophic event that terrorized the city Tuesday.
"There was smoldering going on up and down that ridge," said
WILDFIRE EXTRAS
- View a map of the wildfires across Colorado on June 23.
- Social Media: Shared photos and videos of the Waldo Canyon fire.
- FEMA's advice on how to survive a wildfire.
- Real-time map showing social media reactions to the fire.
- Perimeter map of the High Park Fire perimeter.
- Explore: an interactive timeline of Colorado wildfires.
- Register yourself or search for evacuees with the Red Cross.
Drennan's engine crew worked all night and day protecting homes in the Peregrine subdivision — hoses plugged into fire hydrants, snuffing out flare-ups and watching the wind.
Anxious homeowners who had been ushered out of their homes the day before sat in their cars in a parking lot east of Interstate 25 with a view of their neighborhood, watching as smoke billowed and trees caught fire around it and listening to emergency-radio traffic on a scanner.
"I'm just hoping nobody dies," said Seth Grotelueschen, listening as a Denver engine company protecting his home was ordered to leave in the face of a wall of flames.
About 32,000 people remained out of their homes Wednesday, and new evacuations were ordered in Teller County. Several neighborhoods in El Paso County were placed on pre-evacuation orders as fire managers closely watched the forecast.
Sandra Fales wiped away tears Wednesday morning as she pulled clothes for her three children from the trunk of her car. She and her children spent the night at the Red Cross shelter at the Southeast YMCA .
After watching the fire for hours, Fales was ordered to evacuate around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
"I watched it roll down the hill as it took out everything," Fales said. "The flames just took it all out."
In a neighborhood north of the Air Force Academy, families raced to pack up their cars afternoon after hearing that they should be prepared to flee.
The fire was still about 5 miles away, but the wind was blowing north.
"I'm just taking anything that is irreplaceable, photos, baby books," said Julie Gwisdalla as she loaded her SUV. "It's pretty scary to think your home is going to burn up."
For Stefani, an Army surgeon who returned from Afghanistan a month ago, the loss of his home came after a horrific time in which he fled the flames.
He was watching a televised news conference Tuesday about the fire when he noticed leaves rustling in the wind. He walked up the street to get a view of the mountain behind his home and saw flames a
mile away and moving fast.
With his wife and son in Denver, he rushed back to get their dog and pack some essential items: the title to their car, computer hard drives, birth certificates, some of his items from Iraq and Afghanistan, a baby blanket and clothes.
Embers and ash began falling and thick smoke covered the driveway. While he packed, his wife called.
"I can't talk," he said. "I need to load the car."
His brief and rushed tone worried her.
"I don't scare easily," he said. "My wife knows that. I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I saw a lot of trauma there. But I sounded rattled."
On Tuesday night, the enormity of what had happened to him and his wife hit hard. They had to go and buy copies of the two books they read to their son each night, "Goodnight Moon" and "Pat the Bunny."
And they had to replace his favorite teddy bear that makes a noise when it's squeezed.
When their son squeezed the bear's belly and they heard that familiar sound, "that was pretty emotional. We both cried."
He said he feels lucky because he has insurance and an Army community that cares about him and his family. They are now looking for a new place to live and hope to lease something within a week.
"Then, it's starting over from scratch."
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 orjpmeyer@denverpost.com
Denver Post staff writers Kurtis Lee, Tom McGhee, Jordan Steffen and Erin Udell contributed to this report.
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