Waldo Canyon Fire

This summer we had the horrible experience of a wildfire in Colorado Springs.  Named the Waldo Canyon Fire - it started on June 23rd.  Rob actually saw the very start on the fire on his way home through the mountains after driving some of the youth from the ward home from Aaron's camp.  It quickly grew and spread and most of the weekend was spent watching the smoke coming out of the mountains and the news reports on this fire.  I chopped off my hair on that Saturday and from the hair salon chair I could see the big smoke plumes and it was so sad!

We were glued to the television and on Tuesday the fire jumped the ridge and started damaging homes.  The evacuation zone was getting larger and we were only 1.5 miles away from the edge of the evacuation zone.  But worse part was the smoke in the air!  It was so awful and made it hard to breathe.  It didn't help that it was extremely hot and we have no air conditioning in our house but couldn't open up the windows for relief!

It definitely made me realize I was not prepared if we needed to evacuate!  I couldn't find half the documents that I would need or the supplies.  So I'm determined to really get my 72 hour kit in order and be better prepared for an emergency.

I spent most of Wednesday at my visiting teacher's house since she has air conditioning and I was worried about the air and heat in our house!  That night I headed up to Debbie's daughter Lindsay's house in Castle Rock to stay for a little bit since the air quality was so much better up there.  It was a good break for the kids and nice to be able to enjoy the outdoors!  I was ready to pack up and head out out to Utah but then all the fires started out there and I wasn't sure about driving out there by myself with 3 kids. Pretty surreal and scary!

Here are some pictures we took from our neighborhood and the trail behind our house - everything looked orange and hazy for a while!