Colorado Springs Fire Chief recalls extended battle to contain Waldo Canyon Fire

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- While more than 300 homes were lost, firefighters are credited with saving hundreds that were threatened by the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire.

One of the very first firefighters to see the smoke from the fire is now the fire chief in Colorado Springs.

Chief Randy Royal remembers seeing the smoke along Highway 24 while returning from an unrelated call on the morning of Saturday, June 23.

“At that point, it was a really tight column, going straight up in the air, but as soon as I saw it, I got this sick feeling in my stomach because I knew it was going to be bad,” he recalled.

The immediate concern was the Cedar Heights neighborhood, a gated community up the hill from Garden of the Gods Park.

“At that point, we called out multiple alarms of wildland firefighters and equipment and called for air support and then also called for the evacuation of Cedar Heights,” said Royal.

Due to their efforts, not a single home was lost in Cedar Heights.

At that point, the fire itself seemed to change directions, moving north and west toward Rampart Reservoir.

Then, early Tuesday, June 26, Royal remembers having another bad feeling while watching the wind push the fire back to the east.

“This is like 3 in the morning,” he explained. “It was still like 80 degrees out, so abnormally high temperatures. We could see the column was moving more to the northeast, so we knew it was changing direction and based on what the predicted weather was for the next day, we thought the winds could take this in.”

He remembers the winds from the collapsing thunderstorm that pushed the flames over the mountains and down the hill toward the city.

Video captured by CSFD staff shows crews battling the blaze as it tore through parts of the westside on that Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Teams cut through fences to save as many homes as possible, but the conditions in Mountain Shadows eventually forced them out.

“A guy named Captain Riker was running that part of the fire at the time, and he pulled everybody out, and basically we let the fire blow through there, and then as soon as we could, we sent people back in,” recalls Royal.

“At that point, there's hundreds and hundreds of houses that were either on fire or being threatened by fire.  And we threw everything we had in there, resource wise, and crew wise, to try to save as many houses as we could.”

Firefighters would spend the next few hours protecting what was left. Even trainees at the academy were sent in to help, despite having not yet been sworn in.

Hundreds of firefighters were out there for six days straight with little to no sleep.

Their efforts, commemorated in collages on an upstairs wall of the CSFD headquarters, are what the chief remembers about the Waldo Canyon fire more than anything else.

“Everybody really made their money that day.  I think our troops and everybody that was involved, all the different agencies that were involved did a really good job.  I mean we lost close to 400 homes, but we saved probably 1200-1500 homes from burning down, ones that had fire against them and were on fire, and we were able to get it stopped.”