Two Updates on Colorado Wildfires

UPDATE 6-Worst wildfire ever in Colorado claims first victim

Reuters, Fri Jun 29, 2012

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/usa-wildfires-colorado-idINL2E8HS9UF20120629

* Early damage reports say 346 homes lost in blaze

* Colorado’s Waldo Canyon fire only 15 percent contained

* Body found in rubble of burned-out home (Adds number of firefighters on Waldo Canyon blaze; edits)

By Keith Coffman

COLORADO, SPRINGS, Colo., June 28 – A wildfire that forced the evacuation of 35,000 people from the edge of Colorado’s second-largest city has killed at least one person and incinerated 346 homes, making it the most destructive blaze in state history, officials said on Thursday.

Lighter winds helped firefighters gain new ground against the inferno, which had roared unchecked on Tuesday night through communities in the northwestern corner of Colorado Springs and threatened the U.S. Air Force Academy campus in town.

Aerial photos of devastation unleashed by the so-called Waldo Canyon Fire showed large swaths of neighborhoods reduced to gray ash – one house after another obliterated while adjacent dwellings survived mostly unscathed.

Authorities initially acknowledged the loss of hundreds of homes, but the damage toll released Thursday afternoon by Mayor Steve Bach – a preliminary count of 346 houses gutted by fire – confirmed the full extent of destruction.

Hours later, Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey said a body was found in the debris of a burned-out home, marking the first known death from the five-day-old blaze.

Carey gave no further details about the person, who became the fifth killed this year in a Colorado wildfire season described by the governor as the worst ever in the state.

Body found

The police chief said he had reports of two adults missing in the fire, but it was not immediately clear whether the body found accounted for one of them.

Earlier in the day, police said some people listed as unaccounted for were believed to have neglected to register with the city or the American Red Cross as evacuees.

The tally of homes consumed by the Waldo Canyon blaze ranks as the most on record, surpassing the 257 homes swallowed in recent weeks by a much larger blaze north of Denver near Fort Collins. (Graphic of fires: link.reuters.com/cet98s)

President Barack Obama planned to visit Colorado Springs on Friday to meet with firefighters and tour the ravaged area.

RASH OF WILDFIRES ACROSS COUNTRY

Waldo Canyon was among over 40 large, uncontained wildfires being fought across the United States, the bulk of them in 10 western states — Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and even Hawaii, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, reported.

Searing temperatures and strong, erratic winds in recent days stoked the Waldo Canyon blaze, which has burned at least 18,500 acres (7,487 hectares) of timber and brush, much of it in the Pike National Forest to the west of the city that lies at the base of the famed Pikes Peak mountaintop.

With the blaze curtailed somewhat by Thursday thanks to calmer winds, the Air Force Academy went ahead with ceremonies welcoming a new class of over 1,000 cadets, base spokesman Harry Lundy said.

For the first time since the fire erupted on Saturday, a red-flag warning for heightened fire hazards was lifted for the Colorado Springs area.

“We had a pretty good day on the line today. There was minimal fire growth,” incident commander Rich Harvey said.

But anguish and frustration ran high among many of the estimated 35,000 residents who had to be evacuated from homes.

“You don’t have the authority to keep me out of my house,” David Dougherty, 45, a retired member of the Armed Forces, shouted out during the news conference. “I understand they’re trying to save lives, but some of us don’t need to be saved.”

Dougherty said he believed his dwelling was still intact and wanted to be let back in to the evacuation zone to secure his home and his belongings. Police reported at least two arrests for burglary in an evacuated neighborhood.

SOME EVACUEES RETURN, OTHERS LEFT HOMELESS

While authorities began allowing some evacuees to return beginning at 8 p.m. local time Thursday, hundreds of residents from neighborhoods caught in the heart of Tuesday’s firestorm met privately with city officials on the campus of the University of Colorado to learn the fate of their homes.

Byron Largent, 26, and his wife, Rebekah, 31, who fled with their year-old daughter, Emma, on the first day of the fire, emerged from the meeting saying their worst fears had been confirmed. The house where little Emma took her first steps two weeks ago was gone.

Largent said some of the family’s smaller belongings would be the most irreplaceable. “We lost the rocking chair that we rocked our baby to sleep in for a year,” he said.

The Waldo Canyon blaze remained formidable. Fire crews had managed to carve containment lines around just 15 percent of its perimeter by Thursday afternoon – a fraction of the fire zone although still double the previous day’s total, officials said.

More than 1,200 firefighters, supported by heavy air tankers and helicopters dropping flame-retardant chemicals, had been assigned to the blaze, Harvey said.

A residential subdivision called Mountain Shadows was hardest hit. “There was nothing left in some areas, burned-out foundations that were smoldering. It looked like a nuclear weapon had been dropped. It’s as close to hell as I could imagine,” said Bach, the mayor, after touring the area.

The cause of the Waldo Canyon Fire remained under investigation. The FBI’s Denver office said on Thursday its agents were working closely with local, state and federal law enforcement “to determine if any of the wild land fires resulted from criminal activity”.

The fire menacing Colorado Springs follows a recent string of suspected arson fires in a neighboring county, but officials said they had no indication that the Waldo Canyon blaze was deliberately set.

Although federal authorities say the fire season got off to an early state in parts of the Northern Rockies, the number of fires and acreage burned nationwide is still below the 10-year average for this time of year, according to fire agency records.

In Montana alone, eight separate fires have leveled close to 100 structures. The biggest losses were near the town of Roundup, north of Billings, where 64 buildings, half of them homes, were destroyed. Hundreds of people were evacuated. (Additional reporting by Ellen Miller and Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Colorado wildfires: President Obama declares disaster

BBC News, June 29, 2012

People affected by the wildfires discuss their experiences of the disaster

Related Stories

• In pictures: Colorado wildfires

US President Barack Obama has issued a disaster declaration for Colorado, where wildfires have forced tens of thousands from their homes.

Mr Obama is scheduled to visit the affected area on Friday, as federal funds were cleared to combat the blaze.

One person was declared dead after human remains were found in a burned-out home in Colorado Springs.

The Waldo Canyon fire has destroyed 346 houses, making it the most destructive in the state’s history.

On Friday morning, officials said the fire was 15% contained and that favourable weather conditions helped firefighting crews make good progress overnight.

Incident commander Richard Harvey said there had been no perimeter growth of the fire, and no additional structures were lost or damaged.

But the forest service has warned that it could still take weeks to get the wildfires under control.

Another blaze in northern Colorado – the High Park fire – has killed one person and has destroyed 257 homes, officials have said.

Half of America’s firefighting resources, some 1,100 personnel, have been deployed in the state, where nearly 160,000 acres have been razed.

Some mandatory evacuation notices have been lifted, authorities said on Friday, enabling some people to begin returning home.

Many people remain in shelters and officials said that it may take some time to restore gas and electricity services to those who have been allowed to re-enter their houses.

On Tuesday, about 32,000 people were forced to leave their homes as the Waldo Canyon fire surged across the city limits of Colorado Springs, the state’s second biggest city and home to some 420,000 people.

Late on Thursday, Police Chief Pete Carey said the remains of a person were found in a gutted house in the city.

He said the body was one of two people reported missing from that address, but did not give further details.

On Friday he said authorities were trying to trace fewer than 10 people who may be unaccounted for.

Officials on Thursday said the fire was halted before it reached the academy for US Air Force cadets. It had been evacuated, but residents were allowed to return on Friday morning.

The authorities informed those who had lost homes on Thursday. Some had already been able to tell if their houses had survived from aerial photos, which showed rows of buildings reduced to ashes.

“Our minds just started sifting through all the memories of that house that we lost that can’t be replaced,” resident Rebekah Largent told the Associated Press news agency, after learning from lists distributed by the authorities that her house had been among those destroyed.

Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach said it would be a difficult time for those affected.

“This community is going to surround them with love and encouragement,” Mr Bach said, according to the AP.

The fire, which has caused an estimated $3.2m (£2m) of damage, was 15% contained as of late on Thursday.

President Obama is due to tour the affected areas later on Friday. His decision to declare a disaster in the area makes federal funds available for local relief efforts.

Wildfires are also sweeping parts of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California.