NE frmhnd

You might notice something in pictures 4 and 32.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured...-springs/5732/

Totallyrad

I just came back from working construction in Colorado for the last 2 months. For 2 weeks all the news channels talked about was the High Park fire, now Waldo Canyon is the talk. Waldo Canyon exploded a few days ago when the winds hit 60+ mph one night and the fire doubled in size in just 24 hours. The pictures, devastating as they are, are don't do justice to the suffering of the nice folks of Colorado. One other note, unlike when hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast, nobody is asking where the help is going to come from. All I heard was praise and thank yous for the police, fire fighters and first responders who are on the front lines of this disaster. Continued prayers from here.

NJTman

Good catch !

That truck must be in pristine condition, and have hardly any miles on it....


Truly terrible what's happening there. My MIL was passing through the state last week, and the smoke put her in the hospital the following day. Her Emphysema had never been affected prior to that exposure.


My hopes and thoughts go out to those who are living through that.

BarryG

The high park fire is now fully contained. 88000+ acres 250ish structures, they say it will not be fully out until the snow flies.
Those structures were over a few week period.

The Waldo fire now approx 19000 acres, approx 350 homes in one night. As previously mentioned the wind picked up shifted direction right into a few neighborhoods 34 streets pretty much cleaned out of homes. Not all of them but certainly most of them within effected neighborhoods. Approx 30% contained.

However Obama came out last friday to survey the Waldo fire so all should be good now. Not sure if he actually found Waldo though.

simplysmn

But wasn't he Quick to Call for more help ?

92smokin blacky

Couldn't ask for a better more reliable truck to the rescue!

This is a really bad deal. We had a bad fire here in Pocatello, Idaho this last weekend. 66 homes lost

BarryG

Last night they said the Waldo fire was now 65% contained. We actually have some rain in the forecast the next few days as spotty as it may be it sounds like enough that it might actually hit the ground instead of the high based storms we had that caused the high gusty winds with little to no precipitation that fueled the fire that fateful night.

Sorry for throwing Obama under the bus in my comment or even introducing politics in this thread. While I am not a supporter of his I suppose it was good that he wanted to come out and check things over. I cant and dont blame him in anyway for what transpired. As far as additional help I have not heard anything about him supplying more help due to his visit. The following day they did retask some of the c130's and have read that one of those crashed in South Dakota and now they have all been grounded pending an investigation of what happened. Again no blame on him for that. I would not expect our President regardless of who to micromanage or even macromanage a particluar fire. However a Presidential visit during such a time just distracted the LEO's for his security from duties that would have been beneficial working the security support roles they had been doing in regards to the fire. At one point there were over 30,000 people evacuated. They have arrested several people for looting. They even caught some guy who had government plates on his vehicle, firefighter uniform and gear (all stolen) who was an imposter doing nothing more than looting. Freaking scumbag. And the donation scams have already started.

Many heartfelt thanks to the vast array of firefigthers (there were already over a thousand on that fire the night it blew up and burned most of the homes), plane and helicopter pilots and their associated support people, police, the local citizens etc etc etc for doing their darned best to keep this from being even worse. They hit this fire very hard early mother nature just had a different plan. My heart goes out to all that lost their homes and hopefully they can rebuild. However as you can imagine that will be a long road and at minimum those 350ish homes will be a long time in returning putting those effected on a long slow road to recovery life is going to be tough for them for a while.

NE frmhnd

I feel sorry for the people, but someday they might finally learn that they need to clear enough space around all their new developments so that they can bring in equipment and turn up a fire break in a moment's notice.

Yes, isn't it amazing how after a disaster, the (any) president shows up, and it's supposed to make everything better?

Even though they are taking resources away from places where there is more need for it. And only talk to people who have been screened by their handlers.

There were a couple fires started last week down by Oberlin, Kansas. One a car overheated so they pulled off the road. Another someone just pulled a car off the road for whatever reason. And we haven't had significant rains in months. Then north of McCook some kids were throwing firecrackers out the car window and started another fire.

Wish me luck. A fleet of black suburbans that just went by.

Totallyrad

You want to know what makes it even funnier? When a President shows up all work in the area where he is has to stop. The last time he was here in Alabama we had to quit storm clean-up for 4.5 hours until he left the area.

NE frmhnd

And his handlers wouldn't let a single person who was tired of sitting around with their thumb up their bum get anywhere near him or a microphone either did they?

NJTman

Scott,

Keep your thread on topic, otherwise you'll turn your interesting and heartfelt thread into a political mess.