Jump to content

Colorado Springs Wildfires, don't let this happen to you.


HeadphoneAddict

Recommended Posts

The Fires have entered Colorado Springs. The famous Flying W Ranch is on fire, and the neighborhood we lived in 20 years ago (Mountain Shadows) is on fire. We appreciate any prayers, best wishes or kind thoughts this way. Thousands of people are displaced right now on the west and northwest side of town, and may become homeless soon.

We currently live on the southwest end of town, and are about 10-15 miles from the closest flames. The winds kicked up to 55MPH earlier, and the fire just took off for the north - it's covered over 3 miles toward the north in the past 4 hours. A change in the winds could force it to the south of HWY 24, and in our direction.

While the Garden of the God's is not out of danger yet, the fire is now headed toward the Air Force academy. On the way it could take out our church and the entire neighborhoods of Peregrin and Mountain Shadows west of I-25. Much of the city (but not all) north of Garden of the Gods Road and West of I-25 is under Mandatory evacuation and many roads have been converted into one way streets heading east.

m68z6k-m68z3806262012waldocanyonfire449.jpg

Be sure to be careful wherever you are about such dry and hot conditions, where a fire could start in an instant. Be sure to do fire mitigation around your homes, so that there is a fire break around your homes. We live in a designated wilderness preservation area by NORAD and weren't allowed to cut anything more than 10 feet from our home. We should have ignored the regulations years ago, and now that we're willing to violate the rules we can't get anyone to help us cut large amounts of scrub oak that's within 11-15 feet of our home (we should even go out to 20 feet or more). There's just too much to remove in 102 degree weather right now.

We did manage to get rid of most of the stuff the other day that grew closer than 10 feet over the years. We have a beloved pine tree with branches only 6-7 feet from the house that we are debating whether to mutilate it or not. I can't see that one tree being the sole cause of fire reaching us, when the scrub oak is only 10 feet away.

More info:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/fire-140851-highway-waldo.html

http://www.facebook.com/springsgazette

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The entire city west of I-25 and north of Garden of The Gods Rd is under mandatory evacuation, including the Air Force Academy.

That's about a 20 - 25 minute drive north from our house. Our kid's high school has been an emergency evacuation center since Saturday (and still is for now), so we feel somewhat reassured that we are safe for now or they'd be sending people to another school farther east.

The fire is jumping 4-lane streets in the neighborhoods that are burning, and jumping house to house now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Totally sucks, Larry. But, as I'm sure you already do, make sure you have your go bags ready and remember to keep your family safe. You can replace all the other shit. Good luck.

EDIT: And now is a good time to make sure you have your homeowner's policy. Make sure you take it with you if you get evacuated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, we have our passports, papers and recent tax returns in the fireproof safe in the house, and will empty it in the event of evacuation and take papers with us. The safe isn't huge but it's too heavy to load in the car. I'm going into the accordion files for the newest insurance policy and other papers, just in case. We only renewed the policy 6 weeks ago, and it's filed but not in the safe yet.

We all have a bug out bag with clothes, toiletries and meds. We can easily grab pets, laptops, data backups and photo albums, and could leave everything else if we had to. If there was an evacuation we'd hope to have time to load a little bit of other personal affects, like my oxygen and cpap machine, or SR-009 and HE-60.

evil.gif

Edited by HeadphoneAddict
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Totally sucks, Larry. But, as I'm sure you already do, make sure you have your go bags ready and remember to keep your family safe. You can replace all the other shit. Good luck.

^This Larry. The safety of your family is the single most important thing right now....stuff you can always replace. Good luck and best wishes to you and the other people affected or in danger of being affected by the fires.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

maybe I'm silly, but there aren't many things Id' grab before oxygen, if I needed it in a bottle for my day to day existence.

I mostly just sleep with the oxygen, or at high altitudes and exertion, and I have a portable bottle in my car. My oxygen company can always replace the oxygen concentrator and other stuff. Without the oxygen, with just cpap at a mile elevation, my O2 saturations while asleep or at rest stay around 90%. The concentrator takes up a whole seat in the car.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.