Fire

To experience Meryl Runion Rose’s Cascadian pictorial chronicle of the Waldo Canyon Wildfire from the beginning, click here. To continue, click next below.

With 100 degree temperatures in the city of Colorado Springs, we were happy to have a place to land up the hill in Woodland Park. It was warm there, and occasionally smokey, but nothing like my friends in Colorado Springs endured. We make ourselves at home right away. The cat took about two seconds to adjust to her new digs. She particularly liked being around the people with cat allergies, but she also laid claim to a shelf in our closet. We didn’t bring much, so we didn’t need the space for our stuff. 

To experience Meryl Runion Rose’s Cascadian pictorial chronicle of the Waldo Canyon Wildfire from the beginning, click here. To continue, click next below. 

By 4 PM when we left, the smoke was clearly visible behind our house. There wasn’t a single cloud that day. That’s all smoke. 

Leaving was spooky. Sheriffs were going from house to house. We were gone before they got to ours, but a neighbor told me they searched inside to make sure we were really gone. 

To experience Meryl Runion Rose’s Cascadian pictorial chronicle of the Waldo Canyon Wildfire from the beginning, click here. To continue, click next below. 

Bob is Mr. Prepared, but we still weren’t convinced of how threatening this was. To give you an idea of our thinking (or not thinking) Bob suggested we leave the kitty. He was thinking she would be more comfortable at home. I vetoed that idea immediately. Still, we both shared a sense of unreality as we packed. Ultimately, there isn’t much I left that I would take next time, but there are some things.  

While we were packing, the phone rang a lot. we were getting offers to help and for places to stay. A few friends tried to keep us on the line to talk, and we had to “SpeakStrong” to let them know we needed to go.

I took pictures of our stuff for insurance purposes, and went out for another picture. This is from 2 PM – a half hour after the previous picture from this spot. It sure had grown!

We were on pre-evacuation status for probably an hour before it became mandatory. The phone rang – it was a reverse 911 call telling us to get out.