Even before July's tragic news of a madman entering a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises and opening fire on an unsuspecting crowd of moviegoers in Aurora, killing twelve innocent people, and wounding 59 more, Colorado had already been in the national news because of all the fires ravaging our state. I wrote this last month:
June was the month that the
luscious, green, and beautiful state of Colorado was on fire!
Almost immediately after science
fiction author Ray Bradbury died (the guy who wrote the classic sci fi novel Fahrenheit 451, I might add), a series
of devastating fires developed, starting in northern Colorado, burning through
37,000 acres before it was even partially contained! Dubbed the “High Park” fire, it burned
through another 25,000 acres up by Fort Collins, where almost 200 homes were
destroyed. On the morning of June 12th,
high southern winds blew the smoke and smog even down into our neck of the
woods in Westminster, Broomfield, Boulder, Arvada, and Denver. We could see all the smoke surrounding us
when we stepped outside, and it smelled liked a campfire or a barbecue!
People will try to get away with
anything they can. At work, that means
our timesheets need to have lines drawn through the days we didn’t work and a
zero with a line through it in the overtime column, because, as you might
suspect, people have cheated and written in other amounts after it was
signed by their manager! For these High
Park fires, it means someone was dressing as a firefighter and going into the
fire zones to steal equipment from the firefighters and stuff left behind by
people who had been evacuated! People
will try anything!
By the end of the month, we were
experiencing some very hot days with no rain in sight to help put out the fire,
and after this Fort Collins fire burned through 70,000 acres, eight more fires
developed around the state on June 24th, with many homes and
businesses lost! Most were caused by
lightning strikes, but the one that struck Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs
was suspected of being the result of arson.
All of Manitou Springs, and parts of Estes Park and Colorado Springs
were evacuated, and that fire blazed out of control for days at the same time
firefighters were still trying to contain the High Park fire, and other fires
were starting all over the place, including up in the Boulder area, and which
we could see developing and working it’s way over a mountain close to our
offices in Broomfield, which they called the Flagstaff fire.
My brother posted on Facebook how the
Flying W. Ranch that we had been to twice had burned down (yet interestingly
enough, we later learned that the building holding a bunch of irreplaceable
books was the only building left intact!).
 |
| Visiting the Flying W. Ranch for the first time in 2008 |
 |
| This building was amazingly left standing! |
 |
| Even in the rain, we enjoyed the show in 2011! |
The Waldo Canyon fire down south burned it to the ground, along with
several other homes and businesses in the area.
The High Park fire was finally contained after burning through 87,000
acres, and yet the Colorado Springs fire was eventually considered to be even
more devastating!
Meanwhile, Obama took time out of
shoving that monstrosity of a health care bill down our throats, with the
Supreme Court supporting it as a “tax” even though Obama had made a huge point
of making sure everyone knew it was NOT a “tax”, to come to Colorado and survey
the destruction and devastation, but if you ask me, he was just getting in the
way, what with all the secret service and political reporters and other
assorted entourage that has to follow him around wherever he goes!
At the same time all this was going
on, we heard reports of Hurrican Debby wrecking havoc in Florida, causing mass
flooding and devastation! They were
getting some of the rain we needed to be able to put out all those fires!
My heart goes out to all those
people who lost their homes during this horrible tragedy, and especially the
four who died from the fires! I can’t
even imagine losing everything in a fire like that, but those who survived
should at least be glad that they are still alive and kicking. The website for the Flying W. Ranch said it
all the best on their website (linked here), expressing their sorrow not only for their own tragedy, but for
those who lost their homes, but also announcing that once they have had a
chance to gather their thoughts, they will rebuild!
No comments:
Post a Comment