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

[HeadphoneAddict]

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.

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

[Dusty Chalk]

Yeezh. Here's to hoping the fires get put out soon!

[shellylh]

Hope they can get the fires under control and hope they don't head your way.

Big fires can jump across a freeway so I don't think (of course, I am not an expert) that cutting some trees/shrubs near the house is going to help that much unfortunately.

[manaox2]

Best of luck, I hope you and your family get through as unscathed as possible. Most of all, stay safe.

[HeadphoneAddict]

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.

[The Monkey]

Naive question from the lawyer, but does homeowner's cover forest fires or is it like flood zone stuff?

[HeadphoneAddict]

We're watching the news showing houses burning, and the newscasters are barely holding back the tears. The wind is shifting and now the smoke is blowing south towards us. "The fire is creating it's own weather", they are saying.

[Aimless1]

homeowners covers fire, including forest fires.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Naive question from the lawyer, but does homeowner's cover forest fires or is it like flood zone stuff?

As far as we know, it's not like flood insurance.

[The Monkey]

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.

[Pars]

Sucks. Best wishes to you and all out there.

[HeadphoneAddict]

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.

Edited June 27, 2012 by HeadphoneAddict

[acidbasement]

Wow. Take care, Larry. Get out well in advance if it's looking dicey. I remember a few years ago when they had crazy wildfires in Australia, people could not outrun them in their cars and were being burned to death trying to drive away.

[raffy]

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.

[grawk]

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.

[mikeymad]

[ecclesand]

Stay safe, Larry. I've been watching 9News all day today following all the fires and can see the Waldo Canyon smoke plume vividly from my home in Highlands Ranch. This is a VERY bad fire season here in Colorado.

[HeadphoneAddict]

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.

[HeadphoneAddict]

We have well over 800 firefighters on this now!

[Augsburger]

Take care Larry and do not try to wait until the last minute before evacuating. Now may be a good time to take a road trip with the family.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Unless a new unrelated fire starts down south in a new location, the authorities believe that we're safe for now (at least until tomorrow).

This is just terrible so far.

[HeadphoneAddict]

My location is about 1/2" from the bottom of the map, about 1/2" below where hwy 115 is identified, and about 1/2" to the left of where it says Fort Carson. Red is the fire, and blue is mandatory evacuations.

Edited June 27, 2012 by HeadphoneAddict

[Torpedo]

Best wishes Larry. Stay safe, keep your family safe and forget about mostly everything else. Good luck with those winds.

[Dreadhead]

^this!

[Beefy]

Looks pretty nasty out there. Stay safe, Larry