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Colorado Springs fires
If you've been watching the news you already know that an extremely dangerous fire is burning into the west side of Colorado Springs and into the mountains just west of town. Full reports are not in but the incident commander says "numerous" houses have been lost. Most of the west side of town is evacuated, including the USAF Academy, and the communities west of town are evacuated, too. It is far from over but it is already the worst disaster ever in this city. My family is fine and I spoke with Linefinder a little while ago; he and Machele are safe, too. Here are a couple of photos taken from my upstairs windows.
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Yesterday we were happy that they'd achieved 5% containment, with 4600 acres burned. Well....looks like we lost that and a whole lot more this afternoon and evening.
Our house is probably 5 miles as the crow flies from the leading edge of the fire. In our favor though, the fire would have to jump I-25, Monument Creek, and a whole lot of open space without a whole lot of trees for fuel. I am, of course, knocking on wood (literally) as I say that, because I've got a gut feeling that it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better.
Any of you guys back east (or out west, for that matter) that have a few unnecessary rain clouds floating around, send 'em our way. We'll put them to good use and be forever in your debt.
Mike
KSU Firefighter
Take care you guys.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
No fires that I know of in the Steamboat area although the High Park fire (Google that phrase and you can probably get more detail) has burned through about 86,000 acres west of Ft. Collins. The Frisco/Lake Dillon area is okay - no worries there. Your daughter is probably getting some smoke, though. Here's a link that will show you where that fire is:
http://cohighparkfiremap.org/
I hope this helps.
I hope everything up that way gets under control and the damage is minimal. My son lives in Loveland.
We just got our two big fires taken care of. The Whitewater-Baldy fire in the Gila and the Little Bear fire near Ruidoso. Little Bear burned a bunch of houses up there. Now looking forward to flooding in these areas, with no growth to hold everything together. So far, nothing but scortching sun, over 100 degrees every day, and no rain in sight............
They can't get the trees in the street medians watered. They can't time the traffic lights so that you can go more than two blocks without stopping. We've got potholes you could loose a dozer in. But let the city burst into flames and they appear capable of fast, competent action.
Hmmm......I guess we've learned something. To get the streets fixed, we're going to have to light a fire under their
Mike
KSU Firefighter
Manitou Springs, just to the west of us (pretty much a suburb of Colorado Springs) is now under a flash flood watch. Light thunderstorms are predicted for the area, and with the mountain-sides pretty much now denuded of trees and brush, there's nothing to stop the water from cascading down the mountains.
Flames yesterday. Flood today.
Mike
KSU Firefighter
Sure enough ken thanks a million...... that's a lot better link than I have found so far... And just so everyone knows Texas, New Mexico,( where I am at) Arizona and some other parts of Colorado, have had extremely hot triple digits temps. Some record are either being broken as I write or will go down in the books as new records. I don't ever remember a summer being this hot regardless of what state I lived in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder how much of this extremely dangerous situation we may have unknowingly brought on ourselves wheather it is in Colorado, California or here in Florida? My knowledge of Colorado's forest conditions are very limited for sure. One hundred percent of what I know is based on the few days that I sneaked through the woods west of the AF Academy looking for snakes and bugs to eat during my SERE training way back in the early '70s. But I remember the Ponderosa Pine Forests as being similar to our native pine forests here in the Deep South. And the teriffic, frequent thunder and lightening storms, too! Fire in our Southern forest is a natural thing-or was-before the state initiated fire control which has increased the fuel content to extremely dangerous levels in many parts of Florida.
Could it be that our "Smokey The Bear" syndrome of rushing out to put out fire in the woods has allowed the fuel content to reach extremely dangerous levels? That's the case here in parts of Florida for sure! 'Course it doesn't help to think about that when your house is about to burn down! Sure wish that I could help those on the Forum who may be in danger of loosing their homes!
Thats one of the reasons the wildfires in Australia are so devastating. The 'greens' stopped people from clearing up all the dead stuff from around their houses from what some of the people I have met have said.
"It's far easier to start out learning to be precise and then speeding up, than it is having never "mastered" the weapon, and trying to be precise." - Dan C