Colorado Wildfires
Denver was my birthplace and I grew up in the small (then) rural farming area surrounding Johnstown. As far back as I remember as a girl in Colorado, fires were almost non-existent. Oh sure, we would have occasional wildfires, but nothing resembling these past few years and all were confined to more mountainous locations.
I live in far Northern Colorado Springs, pretty much directly east of the USAFA, with a full view of the Front Range on the western side, and the Black Forest on the northeastern side, which gave me photographic access to two of the worst fires in Colorado history.
On June 23rd 2012, at about 12:30 pm, my family and I noticed a small spiral of smoke directly west of our home in the Waldo Canyon area. I snapped a few photos with my phone and went on about the day. Gradually, throughout this first day, the fire increased in size, so I continued to capture photos with my phone. Several days passed and the fire spread. The evening of June 25th, before the firestorm, my daughter and I watched from our deck as the fire jumped the ridge coming the closest yet towards Colorado Springs. I knew this was no ordinary occurrence as flames edged into Queen’s Canyon (the last canyon to the west that sits at a lower elevation nearest to the city). At this point, media coverage and aerial/ground firefighting efforts became intense.
By about 3pm on June 26th, firefighting aircraft struggled to stop the fire’s progress and the outside air temperature spiked at 101 degrees with strong winds. I noticed the fire was moving up to the last ridge above the city and grabbed my Nikon SLR. Since the fire was oriented to the west (into the afternoon light), conditions were not optimum. In my excitement (and as the fire was building into an enraged firestorm), I didn’t take time to set up my camera. By the time it was over, I took 30 sequential photos over a 2.5 hour period spanning the fire’s crest over the ridgeline into the city, its transformation from a fire into a raging firestorm and its movement downhill into the Mountain Shadows, Oak Valley Ranch and Peregrine neighborhoods (where two lives were lost). Hours passed in a blur as my family and I watched the western side of Colorado Springs become engulfed in flames while I documented the fire through my lens (346 homes were lost).
The Colorado Springs firestorm of 2012 was an incredible event. If it were not for the pictorial evidence captured via my photos, I doubt I would remember things clearly. For several hours after the firestorm hit, our home and neighborhood were enshrouded in smoke and ash, roads were filled with people trying to escape, and gas stations were overrun with customers. The aftermath of this fire has caused businesses to go under, a constant fear of flooding due to erosion (each time a thunderstorm passes), evacuations due to flooding in and around Manitou Springs, and displacement of families from homes damaged or destroyed. Mountain landscapes are still recovering, but realistically, it will take a decade or more for them to flourish again. I know one restaurant owner whose business dropped off after relocating from Old Colorado City. Three years later, the business is only now beginning to catch on in its new location.
By late 2012 and into the spring of 2013, Colorado Springs continued to deal with the fallout of this fire. Replanting was underway but hiking trails were still closed in Waldo Canyon. Home rebuilding was ongoing and investigation into the cause of the fire continued. As recovery was underway, our community had no idea that yet again unseasonal heat and drought conditions would cause another fire with even greater impact.
On June 11th 2013, weather reports predicted low humidity, high winds, and temperature approaching 90 degrees. At about 1 pm a fire was reported in the Black Forest and the local fire department dispatched fire trucks to the site. One hour later, while looking out an east facing window on the second floor of my house, I spied a massive plume of smoke in the Black Forest just a few miles away. Incredulously, I snapped a photo with my phone and continued to watch while reliving memories of almost exactly a year earlier. This time, I grabbed my Nikon 7000 SLR and Nikon 7000 SLR Infrared Conversion to take bird’s eye photos of this new fire. Unlike Waldo Canyon, I was not shooting into overexposed western light but towards the eastern horizon in the afternoon while using a higher resolution camera. I went without a tripod (again) and shot whatever photos I could over several days. In the midst of this, the neighborhood was on pre-evacuation orders so I was packing my cars and tuning into the local news. On days when the smoke was not blowing through the neighborhood, I managed to capture close-up images of the fire. Finally, on June 12th (a windy day) the fire exploded, jumped fire lines and quickly spread to the east, north, and west. Evacuation areas were expanded from El Paso County to Douglas and Elbert Counties. Although the Black Forest Fire was an inferno it moved at lightning speed and containment did not take as long as Waldo Canyon. Also unlike Waldo Canyon, the weather worked in our favor, temperatures dropped and, thankfully, rains came.
A few weeks after the fire, we drove into the Black Forest. The effects of the fire’s intense heat were apparent – houses sat completely destroyed with their brick chimneys tilted or lying on their sides; cars were blackened and charred with rims but no tires. The Black Forest had the same look as a war zone. One could also sense the speed of this fire – some homes were completely destroyed while others were left untouched. Great swaths of the forest were completely charred and others untouched. Fortunately, some of my friends’ homes survived. One paid presciently to have her property protected by removing underbrush and trees while keeping others spaced well apart – her home was untouched. Firefighters left a note on her kitchen counter thanking her for saving her home while protecting others..
By June 13th, there were 457 firefighters working the fire line, including the Colorado Air National Guard and fire suppression teams from Fort Carson and the USAFA. It took until June 20th before the fire was 100 percent contained with 14,280 acres burned, 509 homes destroyed, and two people killed. News reports said this fire wrought greater destruction than Waldo Canyon and was the most destructive in Colorado history – damage was quoted at over $85M.
I sometimes wonder what the future holds for Colorado. Our communities are doing what they can to mitigate fire but it may not be enough. The pine beetle has caused great destruction and left areas ripe for even bigger fires. High density infringement of new communities within forested areas means greater risk. As a Colorado native, I’ve seen the Front Range change – water shortages, hotter temperatures, economic development and population growth are having an impact that must be carefully managed. My hope is that Colorado will continue to play a role as protector and preserver of our wonderful western landscapes, the wilderness, and the animals that live here. We must be realistic about fire’s impact as it falls within the confluence of all these things that will determine the future of our amazing state.
As a side note, The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum has an exhibit called, From the Ashes: The Waldo Canyon Fire, which debuted on June 22, 2013. A few of the photos I donated to the Pikes Peak Library District are in this exhibit. Also, I have donated the entirety of my Waldo Canyon Fire and Black Forest Fire photos to the Colorado State University Agricultural and Natural Resources Archive, Special Collections, retaining copyright. My photos of the Waldo Canyon Fire were also used by PBS News Hour. The 30 photos of the Waldo Canyon Firestorm are in sequence and listed as Wildfires in the Portfolio.
