COMMENTARY: Waldo Canyon Fire



Saturday on my way home from work.

This has been an unbelievably traumatic week for me. And since writing has always been good therapy, I thought I would write about my experience.



I spotted the first plume of smoke around noon while showing houses on Saturday, June 23rd. I remember thinking, “Ugh, a wildfire. Someone probably threw a cigarette butt down on the Waldo Canyon Trail. Idiot!” (I do not tolerate the inconsiderate morons who litter and put the rest of us in danger by throwing out their butts anywhere they want, let alone in a forest as dry as ours!)

As I drove up I-25 back to my office after showing the last home, I started to worry about the fire. It was very apparent that the smoke plume had grown significantly larger.



Monday afternoon with the smoke column rising.

That night I watched the news with my family. Yes, it was a wildfire. Yes, it was in Waldo Canyon. And yes, it was dangerous. We watched that evening and much of the day Sunday and into Monday as they evacuated neighborhood after neighborhood coming closer and closer to us. 

The Incident Response Team was amazing as they immediately started holding press briefings twice daily to update the community about the fire. The fire moved in different directions every day, which was making things difficult.  The Fire Manager explained some of the boundaries the firefighters were trying to set up to keep the fire from coming into the city. One of the main containment lines was Queen’s Canyon, just outside the Garden of the Gods area near Glen Eyrie. Two mountain ridges from housing communities, and just about five miles from our house. 


On Tuesday I dropped my daughter off at her grandparents’ house so I could go to work for awhile. The wind was starting to blow. It was quiet at the office, but after a few hours people started going over to the western windows and looking out periodically and I started to do the same. The fire seemed to move faster than imaginable.  The wind had gotten ahold of it and fanned it into a ball of flame.  Before we knew it, the fire had visibly crested the second ridge from town, which meant it had passed the containment line the firefighters had established at the boundary of Queen’s Canyon.



Photo taken from my office Tuesday. My cell camera is terrible,
but you can see the flames sweeping down the mountainside.


Not good. I checked the fire about every 10 minutes. Each time I looked, more of the mountain was encompassed in flames and soon, it crested the first ridge of the mountain range near “the scar” (the old Queen’s Canyon Quarry), and raced down the slope toward the neighborhood of Mountain Shadows. At 4:30, I was finally finished with my work and rushed out of the office and across town to pick up my daughter. By this time, the western sky was black with smoke. The wind was gusting at about 25-30 mph. And there were so many flames.



This is what the flames looked like from the north as they
came down the mountainside into town.
Photo by Cassidy DeJong

Once I picked up my daughter on the eastern side of town and headed back west it really hit me that we were in trouble. As we drove toward the mountains, we could no longer see the flames racing down the ridge. Instead, we drove into a wall of black smoke pouring through the streets from west to east. We could hardly see the cars in front of us in some spots. Everyone was racing to get home and traffic was terrible.



We finally pulled into the house, where my husband was already packing up bins with our most valuable possessions. The wind was now gusting at about 40-45 mph and we could hardly see the homes across the street from us. I think the mandatory evacuation order was issued about 10 minutes after I walked in the door. We grabbed our cats, our lizard, some clothes, our important papers, medications, and a few irreplaceable items, jumped in the cars and left.



This photo taken closer to the fire.  Where we evacuated from,
the smoke was surrounding the cars and blocking the viw.
 But every once in awhile, the smoke would swirl up and we
could see the flames in our rearview mirrors.
(Photo courtesy unknown)

The traffic on our street was stand-still with everyone trying to get away from the wall of smoke and heat that was now bearing down on us. We were trying to get out of the neighborhood going south because of the neighborhoods north of us being evacuated at the same time. My husband and I were both listening to the same radio station when they announced they were closing all westbound lanes to incoming traffic and opening them up to evacuees going east. We immediately turned around, headed north and got out going east in a westbound lane. I tried to keep my daughter calm as she cried in fear the entire drive away from the flames.  When we finally pulled into my in-laws driveway, I finally broke down and cried too, so thankful that we had gotten out and were okay.



The flames barreled down the mountain toward the houses
backed by 65-70 mph winds.  Photo from the AP.

We knew there would be much loss. We hoped and prayed there would be no death. When the news finally came out, the loss was devastating. 346 homes lost. Two dead—an elderly couple that didn’t make it out of their home. The press briefing Wednesday morning was somber.

We spent three nights at my in-laws praying for the wind and the heat to stop. We had record high temps for several days in a row, including one day we hit 101 degrees, a historic high temperature for Colorado Springs.



As aerial photos of the burn area started appearing on social media and eventually even on the news, most people knew, even before the Incident Command Team released the list, of who’s homes had been lost.

Of the 7-8 families I know who live in that neighborhood, I was saddened to discover that one of my client’s had lost their home and all their possessions. Truly, that was the worst moment for me—to have it hit so close to home. But I was amazed at this family’s cheerful spirits and the smiles on their faces when they came to see me at my office a few days later. Truly an inspiration.

The fire destroyed 346 homes in a neighborhood of about 1800. The firefighters made heroic efforts to save most of the homes, facing down the flames that came barreling down the mountain backed by a 65 to 70 mph wind. They said later that the fire moved three miles in one hour that day. When it finally stopped, it was just one and a half miles from my home. I think about how fortunate we are for everything that we have. We are safe. Our neighborhood and home were spared. And, although this is not over yet, the fire is finally moving away from the city. We are hopeful that the pre-evacuation notice we are under will lift soon.

It sure makes you look at what is important in life and remember those that you love. My gratitude is overflowing for the 1200+ firefighters, police officers, forest service officials, and soldiers that are still out there trying to keep us safe.

If you'd like to see an amazing time lapse of the the first five days of this fire, watch this dramatic video by local photographer Steve Moraco:

BOOK REVIEW: "Aftershock"

Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown, 2nd Edition

By David Wiedemer, Robert Wiedemer and Cindy Spitzer

Copyright 2011

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Economic Non-Fiction

3 Bookmarks

Well if this won't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.  Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown is an economic theory book focusing on the state of the U.S. economy with predictions for the next several years. 

The authors of this somewhat doomsday piece believe that there are several interlinking market bubbles (including real estate, stocks, dollar and government debt) that are in the process of popping.  The first of these, real estate, has obviously already begun.  The authors believe that a chain of events, including the current government policies of printing gobs of new dollars and taking on gobs of new debt (currently nearing $16 trillion), are going to lead to a major financial meltdown in the U.S., and even worse abroad, within the next few years. 

Boy, I hope they are wrong.  And as I was reading the book, I found it funny that the authors even talk about people like me hoping they are wrong.  The title of the book comes from the "aftershock" the authors expect after the popping of all these economic bubbles.  In a blatant oversimplification on my part, let me summarize.  The authors believe that at some point in the very near future, we will stop being able to take on new debt because other countries will stop loaning money to us. At the same time, the dollar is going to become so hyperinflated that it will be nearly worthless.  Do you remember the photos of post WWII Germany with the wheelbarrows of cash taken to the store to buy a loaf of bread?  Yeah.  And jobs will become even more scarce.  Discretionary spending will come to a grinding halt.  Real estate will suffer a dismal fate.  And Wall Street will lose most of its value. 

It's a fairly well-written book with logical arguments and plenty of detail.  There were a few places where they lost me, possibly due to my inexperience with the whole investment side of things.  Plus, the blatant plugs throughout the book for their financial services and investment opportunities were extremely self-serving and lessened the credibility of the book as a whole, in my opinion.  But it was an entertaining and educational read with a little bit of an unconventional theory behind it that really got me started thinking more in depth about the economy and what is going on with government fiscal policies.

BOOK REVIEW: "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
By Betty Smith
Copyright 1943, 1947
HarmperCollins Publishing
Adult Fiction
5 Bookmarks

There is so much to say about this incredible book that I hardly know where to begin.  First, I think I'm fairly certain this was only partially fiction. It seems most likely that much of the book is based on the childhood experiences of the author.

The major theme of the book is the cycle of poverty and how one goes about pulling themselves out of it.  The story, however, is an interwoven tale about a young girl, Francie Nolan, and the ups and downs she experiences growing up in a Brooklyn slum in 1912. 

I just loved the character of Francie!  She is spunky, smart, thoughtful and eccentric.  Francie's mother Katie has done the best she can for Francie and her brother, Neeley.  Following some advice, Katie has read a page of the Bible and a page of Shakespeare to the children nearly every day of their lives.  Katie seems aware that education is the key to breaking the poverty cycle.

Francie takes that education and runs with it, developing early a keen sense of understanding and insight to the realities of her world.  Her character knows that "Poor people have a great passion for huge quantities of things," simply due to the lack they usually experience. 

As Francie grows up, she is changed by various experiences and people in her life (as are we all).  One teacher tells her to "tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened."  This helps Francie develop her writing skills, as well as learning a valuable lesson about honesty. 

I really enjoyed reading this beautiful story about a young girl coming of age during a very difficult time in the world.  There were a few part of the book that made me a little bit uncomfortable as I recalled the times in my own childhood when my family stared poverty in the face.  But these are the realities of our world, and this story is a great example of how a person growing up in difficult circumstances overcomes them and makes their world a better place.  Just like the tree of the title, a tree that grows up out of the Brooklyn concrete in a place where one would never expect anything to grow, Francie Nolan thrives in the slum and becomes so much more than anyone would have ever expected. 

I highly recommend this important book for ALL readers.