Waldo Canyon Fire

I live in a beautiful state and a beautiful city.  Our sunsets are silhouetted by the majestic Rocky Mountains with Pikes Peak towering over our city.  I've enjoyed hiking with my family in Red Rocks, Palmer Park, Garden of the Gods.  I've visited the tourist landmarks throughout my life, such as Flying W Ranch, Manitou Cliff Dwellings, Cave of the Winds, and Santa's Workshop.  I learned to fish and all about camping here.  A lifetime of memories I've looked forward to sharing with my own children.

It saddens me to think that this beautiful city and the beautiful mountains overlooking our city are going up in flames.  If you weren't aware from watching the news, Colorado Springs and neighboring towns and cities are under siege by an uncontrollable fire.  We don't know how it started.  We don't know if it was intentional. 

It all began on Saturday (June 23, 2012).  I was at home and my husband was in Peyton helping a friend.  After taking care of some cleaning, I logged on to Facebook to see an explosion of people posting about the smoke cloud.  I went out to our front yard, which faces the west, and sure enough, a huge plume of smoke was rising in the west and beginning to take over the sky.  My husband called me in a panic, not sure if it was close to our home.  I assured him, after checking the news, that it was far west of us and not even within our city limits. 

Sunday is when we began to worry.  Manitou Springs, a small city/town adjacent to Colorado Springs, was evacuated.  My mother-in-law works just miles away from Manitou.  However, our worries elevated this last Tuesday when high winds caused the flames to race through Queen's Canyon and came down the mountain side and engulfed homes on the west side of Colorado Springs. 


I was at work and Scott brought the kids to visit.  Around 4:30pm before Scott arrived at my work, I took the following pictures from my boss' office.  I work just outside the Air Force Academy (which is in evacuation status now) on the third floor of my office building.  The flames burst up and began to come down the hill towards the homes you see at the base of the mountain. 

Shortly after this started, our part of town became covered in a large plume of dark smoke causing everything to go dark.  It was eerie and almost armageddon-like.  The building inside quickly began to reek of smoke.  We got paper towels damp with water and had the kids cover their mouths and nose as we quickly got them to the cars.  This flare up caused the fire to more than double in size from 6,000 acres to over 15,000 acres overnight.  Over 32,000 people evacuated over the last five days.  Hundreds of homes have been lost.  Our beautiful city now under fire.  :(  I hope this will be over soon.