Posted on 04/15/2008 2:38:46 PM PDT by george76
Dozens of homes have been evacuated and a 5-mile stretch of Colorado 82 in western Colorado has been closed due to heavy smoke from a brush fire.
The 100-acre brush fire is burning at 1265 County Road 100, and is threatening several homes and a school, said Tanny McGinnis, spokeswoman for the Garfield County Sheriff's Office.
She said a horse farm and a private school have been evacuated. Two buildings have been damaged and one person has been transported with injuries...
Firefighters from Carbondale, Basalt and Glenwood are at the scene.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
The promised snow will be helpful.
People also need to create a defensible space around their home to give fire fighters a chance.
Even that may not always work, but it is a good start.
Are you near any of these fires?
That night it started snowing and 23 hours later we had 5 feet of snow!
Lost power and had to tunnel to the wood shed to get wood to keep the house warm.
Then our grandson broke out with chicken pox!
What a winter!!!! LOL
I began reading the article just in case it was Carbondale, IL. I have some distant relatives who live there.
A wind-driven wildfire prompted authorities to evacuate all 1,100 residents from the southeastern Colorado town of Ordway on Tuesday, while a second fire in the western Colorado mountains ...
A third wildfire had burned more than 1,000 acres on Fort Carson and a forced a lockdown of the gates to the Army post near Colorado Springs.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/15/residents-flee-wildfires/
On July 6, 1994, 14 wildland firefighters lost their lives when a wind shift resulted in a "blow-up" fire condition that trapped them on the uphill and downwind position from a fire on Storm King Mountain, just outside Glenwood Springs.
The fourteen firefighters included smokejumpers Don Mackey, Roger Roth, and James Thrash; Prineville Hot Shots John Kelso, Kathi Beck, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Tami Bickett, Doug Dunbar, and Terri Hagen; and helitack crew members Richard Tyler and Robert Browning.
.
A small plane involved in fighting a large wildifire near Fort Carson has crashed, killing the pilot.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/15893753/detail.html#
There must be more than one Carbondale.
Was it greendale before the fire?
Yes, I remember that, it is one of the worst I can remember, very sad.
I witnessed a juvenile crew get overrun by fire from about half a mile away in ‘67 or ‘68. I believe 5 or 6 crew members died and the crew foreman as well.
That ended the use of juvy cews on hot lines, from then on we only used adult inmate crews.
The USFS uses the fire as an example of what not to do.
Post of the week.....still chuckling.
Leni
I was consulting with a company off the Diagonal HWY between Boulder and Longmont when the 2002 fire near Pinewood Springs happened. There had been tankers flying out of the Jeffco Airport to fight the fire. This was just after a C130 in California had a wing break off. I was with a person who was an ex-Navy P3 pilot watching a flight go over. He said something like “I wish I could be doing that”. I said something like “those are really old airframes and carrying huge loads, an accident waiting to happen”. It turns out that flight we were watching crashed killing all onboard.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/19/national/main515710.shtml
These pilots are amazing.
They carry huge loads in old planes, fly close to the mountains to get close to the drop zone, suffer bad visibility, unknown winds and downdrafts...
Those pilots have more cojones than I have. While climbing I have had huge Ice/snow avalanches come within 10 yards to the side of me. I have been climbing over 19,000 ft with -15F and about 100 mph wind that lasted about a day. While climbing the Eiger I had a rock that fell from far-far above me that clipped the fabric on the shoulder of my parka. I still climb, but you could not get me on one of those planes or helicopters fighting fires!
Even more tragedy tonight. Two more killed in Ordway.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WILDFIRES?SITE=CODER&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oh I wouldn’t be too dismissive of smaller fires or attempt to minimize them. Firefighters died in Colorado in both the South Canyon and Hyman fires, both smaller than the Rodeo-Chediski you brought up(and I remember that as I was there), and in my neck of the woods the 46,000 acre Cerro Grande caused $1 billion in damages as in swept through Los Alamos.
Thanks for the update! I know some folks in the Rocky Ford-La Junta area and I’ve been to Ordway several times. My prayers are with the locals.
George76
I’ve got good friends in Redstone. Is everything okay that direction? Beautiful area there...prayers for all those near that Crystal river.
:-)
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