Colorado Springs Fire lieutenant talks about fighting High Chateau Fire
With large wildfires burning all over Colorado in the last several weeks, agencies from around the country and locally have worked to help get them contained.
The Colorado Springs Fire Department sent crews to the High Chateau Fire in Teller County for five days to help get it under control.
Lt. Rick Schmidt was one of eight people from C.S.F.D. at the fire at a time to help out.
“The first day of the fire, it started on the edge and it moved right through a major subdivision right there and ended up in a really deep, very steep canyon that was very difficult for crews to get into,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt has been with C.S.F.D. for 18 years and is currently stationed at Station 9 off Garden of the Gods.
His passion for fighting wildfires grew with he was evacuated from the Hayman Fire in 2002. Schmidt said he wasn’t just evacuated, but fought it for 22 days.
“Losing some of my neighbors homes, that was just heart wrenching,” Schmidt said. “I got very interested and very passionate about the structure protection part of fighting wildfires.”
Schmidt lead crews and helped with structure protection at the High Chateau Fire.
“Trying to keep that fire from getting worse and destroying more homes, that was a real challenge,” Schmidt said.
The crews days on the fire lines were long, at least 14 hours of work per day.
“We had to get up early enough to get to the area where the fire was at, get a briefing and get out on the fire line before the fire started to heat up,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt’s main focus on the fire lines was on safety.
“With very active fire, tall flames, rapid spread, those are all real challenges,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt credits maintaining his focus to training, and very real reminders.
“When you see the slides out front or the kid’s swing set, you see a car… it really drives home this is very serious,” Schmidt said.
Wrapping up the fire, the tools on the Type 3 apparatus stationed at Station 9 were crucial.
“We did a lot of chainsaw work so those folks were actually able to go home,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt said he takes away lessons from each fire, as for the High Chateau Fire, it’s a reminder on setting good communication.
“Communications were difficult at first. We didn’t have a lot of repeaters set up,” Schmidt said.
He also added crews who had never met before or worked in the area, cooperated well to get the fire put out safely.
