My home
town Colorado Springs, Colorado is on fire. The beast known as the Waldo Canyon
fire took three days to get here, but get here it did. Yesterday afternoon I
stood in front of my house and watched as this beast clawed its way over a
mountain ridge and then charged down the foothills and in to virgin territory.
It looked
like a volcanic eruption the colors were intense black and brilliant orange, a
true hell storm. I have seen many fires in many forms over my 30 year career,
but never have I seen anything like this.
The sky on
the entire southern horizon was blotted out with this surreal sci-fi effect.
James Cameron himself couldn’t have created this illusion, but it was no
illusion, it was real.
As the
beast was inhaling one huge deep breath to feed itself the winds gusted to 65
miles per hour. You see as a plumb dominated fire takes a breath it sucks in
all the available air around it the air rushes in at the base fans the flames
and rushes upwards into the sky.
I watched
as the beautiful blond hair of the tops of my daughters’ heads swung quickly to
the left and the dust around us kicked up into their wide eyes.
“Is it
gonna get us daddy?” they asked.
“No it isn’t
going to get us.” I answered.
The terror
on their faces although real was nowhere close to the real terror I knew was on
the faces of many of my friends as they were fleeing for their lives. My friends
were posting on facebook and the images they posted could have been taken by
Satan himself.
I know the
men and women fighting this fire, they are friends and colleagues and I know
how many of them lived in the very neighborhood they were fighting the beast
in. Their homes were burning right before their very eyes.
I can’t
imagine watching your home own burn and as a firefighter being powerless to do
anything about it. The firefighters had been deployed in mass into the
threatened neighborhood, they were there at the ready and then the beast
exploded.
A fire wall
it is called. Imagine a wall of fire 100 feet high rushing directly at you at a
speed of 65 miles per hour. The fire travels at the speed of the wind. The commander,
a friend of mine I have known since the recruit academy, called for a bug out. In
other words get the hell out as fast as you can. Something that goes contrary
to ever instinct a firefighter has.
When we see
the beast we are filled desire to kill it. We don’t run, we fight. But with a
fire like this there is no sense in sacrificing our lives for a losing cause. So
we regroup in a safe place away from the fire and wait. The flame wall will
pass quickly and that is when we strike.
We slip
around behind the beast and go right back in, and that is what they did. I listened
to my old friends on a scanner; I knew the voices for I had heard them over the
radios for many years.
I could
hear the stress and the calmness in their voices all at the same time. I know
these men and women and know the subtle little tells they emit. I read the
coded language they use and I knew they were in the shit.
I heard one
company commanded by a friend describe driving down a street with every home on
both sides of the road on fire 40 homes they said, and I knew many of them were
looking at their very own homes. Mind boggling.
I heard
another voice my old Chief a man I know well a man that saved my butt on many occasions,
and I heard him give a command. He told a strike force that they had to hold
their position, that they could not let the fire pass. And I heard the
dedication in the return communication.
“Holding
the line Chief, roger that.”
You see
when this man tells you to do it and tells you can do it, then you know you can
do it and they did, the fire did not pass.
The Colorado
Springs fire department is one of the very best departments in America set up
to fight this kind of fire and they were powerless at that moment.
They will
rally and they will beat this thing and they will never give up. These men and
women are getting a life time worth of fire fighting experience in a matter of
hours. They will talk about this for the rest of their lives and they will
never fear the beast again. For they have seen it at its full fury and they
didn’t flinch.
Over my
career a good working fire in a single family residence was a pretty big deal,
very exciting stuff to jump a good worker and go to work. I imagine for the
rest of their careers now, a single family residence on fire will be much like
a camp fire.
Colorado
Springs will survive, we are a great community and strong Americans and we will
come back. Pray for us and pray for our firefighters as they fight for their
community and for themselves.
