Wildfire scorches Colorado Springs
Dozens of homes burned to cinders
COLORADO SPRINGS — Fire crews fought to save the U.S. Air Force Academy and residents begged for information on the fate of their homes Wednesday after a night of terror sent thousands of people fleeing a raging wildfire.
More than 30,000 have been displaced by the blaze, including thousands who frantically packed up belongings Tuesday night after it barrelled into neighbourhoods in the foothills west and north of Colorado’s secondlargest city. With flames looming overhead, they clogged roads shrouded in smoke and flying embers, their fear punctuated by explosions of bright orange flame that signalled yet another house had been claimed.
“The sky was red, the wind was blowing really fast and there were embers falling from the sky,” said Simone Covey, a 26-year-old mother of three who fled an apartment near Garden of the Gods park and was staying at a shelter. “I didn’t really have time to think about it. I was just trying to keep my kids calm.”
Wilma Juachon sat under a tree at an evacuation centre, wearing a mask to block the smoke. A tourist from California, she was evacuated from a fire near Rocky Mountain National Park last week and, now, from her Colorado Springs hotel.
“I said I hope it never happens again, and guess what?” Juachon said.
Shifting winds challenged firefighters trying to contain the 75-square-kilometre Waldo Canyon blaze and extinguish hot spots inside the city’s western suburbs. The National Weather Service reported 95 km/h winds and lightning above the fire Wednesday afternoon, but winds were calmer by nightfall.
Some 3,000 more people were evacuated to the west of the fire, Teller County authorities said Wednesday.
The full scope of the fire remained unknown. So intense were the flames and so thick the smoke that rescue workers weren’t able to tell residents which structures were destroyed and which ones were still standing. Steve Cox, a spokesman for Mayor Steve Bach, reported that at least dozens of homes had been consumed.