Wildfires

[mollyteardrop]

We are Colorado teardeoppers who live in Colorado Springs. Please pray for our community and our entire beautiful state.
We have a horrific wildfire that is still only 15% contained here and destroyed 346 homes, the worst fire loss in Colorado history. There is a bigger fire outside of Fort Collins. Fires are a natural part of nature's process but the loss of homes has been horrific. 32,000 people evacuated over the last five days. We will recover, our beautiful state will recover and be an even more wonderful place to get out in our teardrop...but this summer ....we just pray for our courageous and dedicated firefighters and all of those people who have lost so much.

[mandy]

We are Colorado teardeoppers who live in Colorado Springs. Please pray for our community and our entire beautiful state.
We have a horrific wildfire that is still only 15% contained here and destroyed 346 homes, the worst fire loss in Colorado history. There is a bigger fire outside of Fort Collins. Fires are a natural part of nature's process but the loss of homes has been horrific. 32,000 people evacuated over the last five days. We will recover, our beautiful state will recover and be an even more wonderful place to get out in our teardrop...but this summer ....we just pray for our courageous and dedicated firefighters and all of those people who have lost so much.

Prayers are being for all those threatened by wild fires. Take care and be safe.

[Redgloves]

My brother lives in Divide, which is about 45 minutes NW of Colorado Springs. While at this moment his home is "safe", he has 15 guests in his yard who have been evacuated from their homes. He wonders if his home owners insurance would cover damage to guests campers if the fire reaches his home.

His usual drive to work is 45 minutes. Due to Hwy 24 being closed, and second closest route is closed, commute now takes over 2 hours. His delimia is should he go to work. Can he get home, what would happen if he was given an evacuation notice with two hours notice to leave. He wouldn't arrive home in time.

On a side note, he says the smoke filled sunrises offer wonder photography and the housing market has drastically turned around. Containment is not expected to occur for a number of weeks.

[S. Heisley]

Consider prayers sent.

Take good care of yourselves and pack and hitch that teardrop just in case.

[Vedette]

Good Luck
Hope things get under control??

[mollyteardrop]

Containment is weeks away....at least for the Waldo Canyon Fire. There are so many more...our firefighters will be working hard all through the summer.

[Catherine+twins]

Thinking cool and raining thoughts for you!

Last year we evacuated from June 26 to July 3. Our July 4 fireworks show was watching the still-burning embers on the mountain side above our house, but no homes were lost. Our previous fire, started by the Forest Service in May of 2000, burned about 200 structures--many of them duplexes and quadplexes, so about 500 families were displaced. After the 2000 fire many of us declared that we were safe, with a 48,000 acre fire break around the town. Actually, the Forest Service, the Park Service, and the Department of Energy (major land-owner in town) did a lot of additional thinning and fire-prevention work that went a long way to keeping the fire out of town last summer. Of course, with government austerity, there is no longer money for fire prevention of that sort now.

Forest fires suck. This drought sucks! Pine bark beetles and the standing deadwood in the forests suck big time! I saw a piece on the news last night where they tested the standing LIVE trees for moisture content, and it was 4%. Kiln-dried lumber is usually 11% or more! At this point if you use hot language in the forest, the trees are going to burst into flames!

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain... (We need a rainy smily that is HAPPY to get rain!)

Catherine

[Forrest747]

Grew up in Littleton (GO REBELS). It is so sad to see such a beautiful place destroyed. Was thinking well no way I will need to evacuate until yesterday when at the south end of the valley a fire broke out and 3 homes torched and thousands evacuated. Tonight we did a dry run to see how fast and what we would take. Trailer hooked up in five minutes and having 2 doors stuff was tossed in and ready to go in 15. It does make for a quick way to get out and a place to sleep if we had to.

Prayers to the firemen, the pilots and all those helping or need help.

[tgburns]

I am in Ruidoso, NM and we just went through the same thing but now I think it is just back burn and watching. Lost about 250 homes here. Had a horrible fire last year too and who knows for the rest of the year. This community really pulled together and people are starting to realize the loss and taking it day by day. I feel for you and your community. No lives were lost here at least!

[mollyteardrop]

Colorado is certainly only one of many states experiencing drought and wildfires. So many people are affected, just as there are people experiencing extreme weather in the east. I have watched disasters on the news and had compassion and empathy, but this experience literally 'close to hme' has opened my eyes and heart even more.

[stumphugger]

I could not keep my mouth shut any longer but there are 5 or 6 other western states on fire besides colorado with smoke in the air and just as bad as you guys.

so lets extend the prayers beyond coloroado folks. we all feel your pain out west here colorado as we are on fire and breathing the same smoke from our own states forest fires.

the hole west folks and all the national forest out here are all on fire there is pelnty of more fires just as bad as colorado.

and we are all choking in the smoke.


so much for the epa and our clean air act.


the cure is what they won't allow.

making lumber out of them bettle killed trees the tree huggers would not let us cut down and make into boards or spray the bettles with.

no we are living with the smoke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so lets not just pray for colorado.

lets pray for all the other states out west here that are suffering in the the heat and the smoke filled skys.

and lets remmber other folks that are hurting just as bad as coloradao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

slow we got at least 10 western states on fire right now with fires just as bad as coloardo springs.

I got fires by me in wyoming just as bad and so does arixona and new mexico and uthah. and the black hills in south dackota.
theres fires in southern callifora its not just colorado folks by a long shot.

colorado is just the only one on the news getting all the news covereage.

What I've seen from pictures, it looks like they are more brush fires than forest fires. The trees wouldn't make good lumber unless they were chipped for particle board.

Spraying for beetles is cost prohibitive, and doesn't do much. Harvesting even if it was worth it would be dependent on the market.
Right now the domestic lumber market is tanked. Also, I believe there is ONE sawmill in all of Colorado. I don't know about Wyoming.

Folks need to realize that fires have been around for eons, and will still occur even when people live there. I know it is hard.
I used to go as a firecrew grunt to forest fires in WA, OR, and CA. When it is bone dry, and the fire is large, and the fuels are abundant, the only thing that puts them out is a good rain. Not the air tankers, not the dozers, not the engines. A downpour.

I used to get a bit upset at all the money thrown at a big fire in dead lodgepole pine--no homes nearby--no lumber value. We'd go at it hard, with hand tools, but nothing stopped it until a big rain hit. The same was true for the fires in Yellowstone in 88.

If you live in fire country, make sure you have done brush clearing, clean the gutters, have a fire resistant roof, all those things that will help. That's all you can do. Then leave when asked to. That way nobody has to come in and try to do a rescue.

Some humor: An erosion control company was hired to do work after the Oakland, CA fire. The owner said that the one thing that survived the firestorm well was Weber Barbecues. The charcoal burning ones.

[mollyteardrop]

People who want to love in what is now being called WUI. Wildland Urban Interface, fancy term, have to know the risks and responsibilities involved. The population of people living in those areas in Colorado has grown dramatically in the
Art 10 years, and when people can work from home, it increases choices to live out of dense urban areas.

The firefight here is about saving property and lives first, and what is burning inside the perimeters and not threatening property is being allowed to burn, which is good for nature's process. We have so much beetle kill here in Colorado and fire is the only thing that will clean it all up. The forest service is saying that the High Park fire outside of Fort Collins won't be truly out until there is a big snowfall. Ultimately there needs to be a lot more education about the role of fire in the grand scheme of nature's cycles.

[Ron Dickey]

I prey for not only those in harms way but those who putting their lives on the line to stop it too and their families who prey they will come home alive.

[stumphugger]

all I got to say is us plywood used to be one of the biggest employers in wyoming in my area till the serria club was invented!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who cares if they would just make chip board

saw the suckers up getting the forest thined out and lets cheapen the cost of chip board up by flooding the market for heavan sakes.

what the heck is wrong with that.

create some jobs and lots of them.

one mill in colorado.

then it would not hurt to have 20 or more if the goverment and the people would just wake the heck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bet colorado could use some more jobs to!!!!!!!

its bettor to get chip board out of it or wood pellets to heat folks homes.

than burn it up and kill people with smoke inhalteton.

wheres are clean air act at??????????????

and they complain about a stupid oi feild in wyoming?

it doesn't even get noticed like this smog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bet some people like my girlfreidn with asmtma would like some clean air to breath for goodness sake.

I say saw the forest up and make some jobs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if its just chip baord or heck sawsdust going into wood pellets.

what the heck???????????

its doing more good than forceing people to breath in heavy smoke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ever lived all summer in this bull crap?????????????????????????????????????????????

Slow, I retired from working in the woods (forestry and logging) about a year ago after 32 years of body abuse. Right now, because of market conditions in this country, our local sawmill has laid off a shift of workers. The export market FOR LOGS has been keeping more loggers working. It's complicated, but it is against the law to export logs that come off federal lands in the lower 48 states.
The market for chipboard probably isn't there either. Folks have to make money or it won't get done.

What'll probably happen, on a limited basis is contracts will be let out paid by our tax dollars to have loggers go in and fall the dead trees and chip them up. That'll probably only be done around homes. The rest of the bug kill will go up in smoke, as it always has.
Congress controls the budget and will have to allocate the $$ for any work.

As for starting up sawmills? That takes a lot of investment in a time where folks are against cutting trees down. I sure wouldn't want to open a sawmill and depend on federal land for my log supply. I live in a depressed timber town that used to depend on Forest Service logs for the mills. There were 6 mills going in the 1980s. There are 3 today. Most of their logs come from state and privately owned lands.

I had heard that some real junk wood was being shipped from Montana to Asia earlier in the year, but that seems to have stopped.

You are correct in saying that environmental groups are partly to blame, but blaming isn't going to clean up your air. The answer I've gotten when debating enviros is that if it bothers you, you should move to a city. However, I bet some of the cities are getting smoke too.

You could lobby for a biomass plant, but that would be protested too.

You'll just have to live with the smoke for a while. It could be worse. You could be living in a sweltering city. I'll take smoke over that anyday.

Oh, I quit doing the firefighting because I came home half the time with a roaring case of bronchitis! That meant a trip to the doctor and horking up my lungs for a few weeks. Not good.

[rowerwet]

being a wood pellet burner I know that there are some excellent pellets coming out of OR made from bettle kill trees, setting up a pellet mill takes millions, and you have to have the timber coming in and ready to cut for many years. Govt. owned land cutting policy changes way to much to count on that.
Up here in NH there are wood chip burning plants coming on line and up and running, but they are taking up the slack from the dead paper pulp supply, most of those trees are on private land owned by the paper and lumber co.'s
Interesting article I read a few years ago about how in Oz the rural home owners are expected to own their own fire fighting gear, prep structures with steel roofing etc,, have their own cisterns, clear their own fire breaks, and fight the fires without much support. They don't loose nearly as many people or houses due to that, also because they plan ahead with a fire bunker to fall back to in the worst case. I think way to many people here depend on the fire dept, instead of making their rural property fire resistant. not to mention our nanny state govt's evacuating instead of encouraging home owners to be prepared and fight fires. The article quoted people in the US who saw houses go up in smoke from easily fought small fires because no one was there to fight the fire after en evacuation.
Much the same type of debate we see after a mass shooting, ban guns VS. a better armed population to fight crime. one just costs more and more money, while the other encourages self control and being prepared.