Raging wildfire most destructive in Colorado's history
Updated 10:42 PM ET
(AP) COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A raging Colorado wildfire destroyed an estimated 346 homes this week, making it the most destructive fire in the state's history, officials said Thursday.
From above, the destruction becomes painfully clear: Rows and rows of houses were reduced to smoldering ashes even as some homes just feet away survived largely intact.
On one street, all but three houses had burned to their foundations, said Ryan Schneider, whose home is still standing in a neighborhood where 51 others were destroyed.
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"I was real happy at first. My wife was happy," he said. "The emotion of seeing the other homes, though, was instant sadness."
The aerial photos showing the scope of one of the worst fires to hit the American West in decades did little to help ease the concerns of many residents who still did not know the fate of homes.
A helicopter flies over the Waldo Canyon fire as it continues to burn June 27, 2012, in Colorado Springs, Colo.
/ AP PhotoAmid the devastation in the foothills of Colorado Springs, there were hopeful signs. Flames advancing on the U.S. Air Force Academy were stopped and cooler conditions could help slow the fire.
The fire was 15 percent contained Thursday night. The cost of fighting the blaze had already reached $3.2 million.
Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach said the 346 estimate could change. A fire in northern Colorado, which is still burning, destroyed 257 homes and until Thursday was the most destructive in state history.
For now, Bach said, the news of the destruction would make it very difficult for the city about 60 miles south of Denver.
"This is going to be a tough evening, but we're going to get through it," Bach said. "This community is going to surround them with love and encouragement ... We will move forward as a community."
People watch as smoke billows from a wildfire west of Colorado Springs, Colo. on Saturday, June 23, 2012.
/ AP Photo/Bryan OllerMore than 30,000 people frantically packed up belongings Tuesday night as the flames swept through their neighborhoods. While there's no indication yet the blaze claimed any lives, fire officials said they would search each home looking for possible remains.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation said two people have been arrested in connection with a burglary at an evacuated home. Belinda Yates and Shane Garrett were being held on charges including second-degree burglary and possession of methamphetamine.
Community officials were planning to begin the process of notifying residents Thursday that their homes were destroyed. For many residents, the official notification was a formality.
Residents recognized their streets on aerial pictures and carefully scrutinized the images to determine the damage. Photos and video from The Associated Press and The Denver Post showed widespread damage.
Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest city, is home to the U.S. Olympic Training Center, NORAD and the Air Force Space Command, which operates military satellites. They were not threatened.
Conditions were still too dicey to allow authorities to begin trying to figure out what sparked the blaze that has raged for much of the week and already burned more than 26 square miles.
President Barack Obama was to tour fire-stricken areas Friday as hundreds of locals and some tourists who were staying at Red Cross shelters hoped life would return to normal. Others stayed with friends and family.
A wildfire in Colorado has destroyed dozens of homes and forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate.
Bill and Lois Bartlett said they believe their neighborhood was spared but remained wary as they waited at a YMCA shelter set up by the Red Cross.
"I've been through a lot of stuff like this before but not in civilian life," said Bill Bartlett, who flew B-17 bombers during World War II.
His wife Lois said the Red Cross bought them two special cots to make them more comfortable but still found staying at the shelter difficult. "You don't have any privacy. You can't look at TV and get the news," she said.
The weather forecast offered some optimism for firefighters to make progress, with the temperature expected to reach into the mid-80s — about 5 degrees cooler than Wednesday — and humidity 15 to 20 percent, about 5 points higher. Winds were forecast to be 10 to 15 mph.
The fire blackened up to 50 acres along the southwest boundary of the Air Force Academy campus, said Anne Rys-Sikora, a spokeswoman for the firefighters. No injuries or damage to structures — including the iconic Cadet Chapel — were reported.
Fort Carson, an Army infantry post about 15 miles from the academy, sent 120 soldiers along with bulldozers and other heavy equipment to help clear a line to stop the fire on the academy. Rys-Sikora said the academy was not getting a disproportionate share of equipment and firefighters.
The Flying W Ranch, a popular tourist attraction near Colorado Springs, was severely damaged in the blaze. But authorities let people into the area to check on cattle. John Hendrix, who volunteers at the Flying W, said 47 animals were accounted for.
"Some of them are pretty scorched up, but they are still there. We didn't lose one," Hendrix said.
Among the fires elsewhere in the West:
— A 72-square-mile wildfire in central Utah has destroyed at least 56 structures and continues to burn with just 20 percent containment, authorities said. Officials expected the damage estimate to rise as they continue their assessment.
— The smaller fire near St. George started Wednesday and had grown to 2,000 acres by midnight, forcing some residents to evacuate. The fire was burning about three miles north of Zion National Park. At least eight structures were destroyed.
— Fire crews in southeastern Montana used a break in the weather to dig containment lines around two wildfires that have burned 200 square miles and dozens of homes. The improved conditions led to residents clamoring to be let back in to check their properties and assess the damage, but authorities kept evacuation orders in place for hundreds of people.
— A wildfire in the Bridger-Teton National Forest has grown from about 12,000 acres to 23,000 acres, or nearly 36 square miles, officials said.
— In northern Colorado, about 1,900 people were allowed back into their homes on Thursday more than two weeks after the devastating High Park Fire erupted. The blaze was 85 percent contained. The fire killed one woman and destroyed 257 homes, then a state record that was eclipsed by the Colorado Springs fire.
Meanwhile, an erratic wildfire gaining steam in western Colorado has prompted officials to evacuate homes in the southern part of De Beque as the 1,500-acre blaze threatened to cross Interstate 70 Thursday night.
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When a disaster is foreseeable, and one does nothing, NOTHING to prepare for it, to mitigate the damage sure to come... why is compassion needed?
People should be outraged that the law allows such a waste of time, money, resources, land, and lives....
Please, do what you can to stop being a victim of circumstance. Prepare wisely.
You seem to think you know it all..but the fact of the matter is, anyone, anywhere, can be affected by tragedy no matter how "prepared" you are. So, you might want to think about that. Karma can be real unkind!!
Those of you living anywhere from New Mexico's border with Texas clear up to southern Prairie provinces of Canada and from western Utah, Idaho and Montana east to the Mississippi River need to consider getting used to a new "normal" I think you are living it now. This is not going to go away anytime soon, if ever.
But I didn't toss in my two cents worth only to tell 30 million people they are essentially scr&wed. I see a pattern of finger pointing and self righteous blame-the-victim mentality and I don't like it. Maybe the atmosphere in 'Springs is overly stuffy and hypocritically X-ian. Maybe some of 'em are acting foolishly with regard to building, where they shouldn't, homes with all the durability of tissue paper; I don't know, I don't live there but I also don't think they are all one-dimensional cartoon villians either - even the tea baggers (as virulently as I loathe them and everything they stand for). I also don't think they all take such leave of their senses as to knowingly assume such big risks with their environment.
Maybe their wounds are partly self inflicted; so what? The Waldo Canyon fire is not yet contained, is right on Colorado Springs' back door step, has oodles of burnable real estate and a Christless fuel load to consume all the way to the interstate. The whole western half from Downtown to the hills could still share the same fate as Peshtigo.
I know it isn't much but as underfunded as I am, I sent a small donation to the American Red Cross. I specifically directed it to go to relief efforts in El Paso County so there is a fractional chance it will be put to the use intended. My hope is that some of you reading my Jeremiad will do the same or something similar.
Who's gonna foot the bill? The entire U.S. because these tea bagging whack-jobs did not want to pay for fire protection for their neighborhoods, which coincidentally were developed in fire-prone pine forests? Now these same so-called anti-government anti-tax pro-selfish individuals are going to apply for federal aid? Unbelievable.
I hope these people finally understand that government services require funding. Just because you don't see a fire or an epidemic or a crop failure does not mean that services and taxes should be cut - it means that the services are working and preventing catastrophic scenarios.
This nation on account of these conservative republicans , their malignant narcissism, chronic scapegoating, grab bagging, racism, bigotry, perversity of inequality, institutional discrimination, rights only of their kind stands economic terror besieged, ideologically divided, polarized and on a fast track of self destruction from within.
The coffers of the Federal Govt. are empty, because the self interest, self righteous, corrupt to the hilt politicians have been misappropriating, mismanaging taxpayers money and have wrong priorities. Within CO there is a lot of private money, that is being used for Obama bashing. There is nothing that he can do during these expensive visits, that get in the way of putting out the fire. He has the Secretary of the Interior and the CO Governor who should be deploying what ever is needed. These evangelical Christians rather then pandering their Organized Religion, thumping the Bible and the rest of the BS get shovels water hoses. These people have alienated one too many and in the past used fires to drive them out.
The whole country is suffering and Obama has no magic wand.
Build for the habitat your house is in. Build smarter, people. The 'disaster' wasn't caused by nature, it was caused by building houses that could be destroyed. People in tornado zones that don't build wind-proof don't deserve insurance covered on their waste.... same goes for this.
Stop feeling sorry for stupid people who build or buy fragile houses.
Look at Monolithic.com and find how disaster resistant their domes are. And please, don't bother telling me they're ugly, they can be awesome depending on the effort put into designing them. The trick is to have materials that don't burn on the outside, of sufficient mass that they can't be moved by wind, of such a shape that a quake wouldn't phase them structurally... Someone built these tinder boxes of wasted resources in the kind of forest that frequently burns, burns every year somewhere out west...
There's no excuse.
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/monolithic-dome-survives-texas-wildfire
One may say that these fires aren't anything like what's raging in Colorado... but to concrete, unless it's 2000°, it's all the same. Leave so you don't die from smoke inhalation and well, by sitting in an oven... but when the fire's out, you can come back home.... to the structure.... still standing...