Finalist: The Denver Post, by Staff
For its vivid coverage of a wildfire that destroyed more than 300 homes, combining on-the-ground reporting with imaginative use of digital tools, including a before-and-after interactive feature that helped displaced fire victims determine the fate of their homes before there was official notification.
Nominated Work
June 26, 2012
By Jeremy P. Meyer
A three-day-old wildfire erupted with catastrophic fury Tuesday, ripping across the foothills neighborhoods of Colorado Springs, devouring an untold number of homes and sending tens of thousands fleeing to safety in what was shaping up as one of the biggest disasters in state history. "This is a firestorm of epic proportions," said Colorado Springs Fire Chief Richard Brown. The Waldo Canyon fire in El Paso County — which had been growing in the forested hills on the city's west side — blew into an inferno late in the afternoon, raging over a ridge toward densely populated neighborhoods.
An apocalyptic plume of smoke covered Colorado's second-largest city as thousands of people forced to evacuate clogged Interstate 25 at rush hour trying to get to their homes or to get out of the way.
By nightfall, roughly 32,000 people left their homes, chased out by the flames.
"We have homes burning right now," El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said shortly before 9 p.m.
The sheriff was among those forced from their homes by the fire.
"This is a very bad day," said Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach.
As the fire continued to grow, all of northwest Colorado Springs was ordered evacuated, including the Air Force Academy.
"People are freaking out," said Kathleen Tillman, who drove up I-25 from Pueblo to her house in northern Colorado Springs. "You are driving through smoke. It is completely pitch black, and there is tons of ash dropping on the road."
At the same time the fire in Colorado Springs was erupting with a new fury, a lightning-sparked wildfire in Boulder blew up in the tinder-dry forest above the city. The Flagstaff fire grew in minutes to an estimated 228 acres and sent a smoke column over Boulder Valley. Twenty-six homes were evacuated, and residents of more than 2,000 homes in south Boulder were told to be ready to flee as the fire crept one ridge away from coming into the city.
Fire crews assembled at Fairview High School in case the wildfire burned into the city.
"This is the structure-protection plan," said Jeff Long, battalion chief for Boulder Fire Rescue. "We are staying here in case it takes a turn for the worse. As long as the city is threatened, we'll be here."
It is a scenario that firefighting officials have feared as the conditions continued to get worse over the past week.
Scorching temperatures have baked the Front Range for several days as thousands of firefighters on the ground and more than 100 planes and helicopters have been battling more than eight wildfires across the state.
Denver tied a record with its fifth straight day of temperatures of at least 100 degrees, and weather in the 90s is expected to continue for several days even as officials hoped that seasonal subtropical moisture would eventually creep into the region and bring much-needed rain.
While Colorado Springs and Boulder took over the headlines, crews working on the High Park fire west of Fort Collins was measured at 87,250 acres with still 55 percent containment. That fire, the most destructive in state history, has torched at least 257 homes, nine more than previously thought.
Conditions are dry throughout the state. Even a fire near Last Chance on the Eastern Plains blew up to 45,000 acres in just eight hours.
But as darkness arrived, it was clear that the biggest fight in the state was in Colorado Springs, where ghostly orange flames rose across the city's western edge.
Gov. John Hickenlooper arrived in Colorado Springs late Tuesday.
"The bottom line is we're just going to have to work through this — all of us," Hickenlooper said. "We just flew over the fires. ... It was like looking at a military invasion."
Wind gusts of 65 mph and the hottest day on record for Colorado Springs — the high hit 101 degrees — proved to be an explosive combination for the Waldo Canyon fire, which until Tuesday had not touched a structure.
"I've seen a lot of fires, but I have never seen one move this quickly," Sheriff Maketa said.
By early evening, the website for the Flying W Ranch, a Western-themed attraction west of Garden of the Gods, announced that it had "burned to the ground."
"Please keep us in your thoughts and those whose homes are close to us," an official of the Flying W Ranch said in an e-mail.
Denver Post staff writers Kurtis Lee, Tom McGhee, Erin Udell and the Boulder Daily Camera contributed to this report.
June 26, 2012
June 26, 2012
June 28, 2012
By Jeremy P. Meyer and Sara Burnett
Tens of thousands of people remained homeless in Colorado Springs on Wednesday, fixated on the smoky hills as the weather helped slow a Waldo Canyon fire that left a stunning path of destruction in its wake. An aerial photograph of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood that was taken Wednesday showed approximately 300 homes, all of them inside the Colorado Springs city limits, reduced to charred rubble. Colorado Springs authorities would not confirm exact numbers, saying they were still making assessments and devising a way to convey the information to affected homeowners.
One of the destroyed homes belonged to Ted Stefani and his wife, Kate. He learned its fate when he picked up The Denver Post on Wednesday. There, in the lower left corner of a front page photograph was his five-bedroom home, obscured by trees and fully engulfed in flames.
"It's a good and bad thing," he said. "It's bad, because our house is gone.
"But at least we know."
The blaze, one of nine major wildfires burning in Colorado, continued to attract national attention Wednesday. The White House announced that President Barack Obama would visit the area Friday, when he is expected to tour the damaged neighborhoods and thank firefighters.
The blaze's cause was not known Wednesday, and the FBI joined the investigation, which was in its earliest stages.
The four-day-old fire that had grown to 18,500 acres smoldered throughout Wednesday, but cloud cover and shade from the smoke kept ground temperatures cooler than on previous days.
Firefighters had a containment line around about 5 percent of the burned area.
Late-afternoon winds fed by a nearby thunderstorm sent firefighters running for safety in the hillside neighborhoods they were protecting. But those gusts, which reached at least 20 mph, did not blow the fire into anything like the catastrophic event that terrorized the city Tuesday.
"There was smoldering going on up and down that ridge," said Charlie Drennan, division chief of operations for the Denver Fire Department, one of 13 fire departments from around the region that were helping out on the fire.
Drennan's engine crew worked all night and day protecting homes in the Peregrine subdivision — hoses plugged into fire hydrants, snuffing out flare-ups and watching the wind.
Anxious homeowners who had been ushered out of their homes the day before sat in their cars in a parking lot east of Interstate 25 with a view of their neighborhood, watching as smoke billowed and trees caught fire around it and listening to emergency-radio traffic on a scanner.
"I'm just hoping nobody dies," said Seth Grotelueschen, listening as a Denver engine company protecting his home was ordered to leave in the face of a wall of flames.
About 32,000 people remained out of their homes Wednesday, and new evacuations were ordered in Teller County. Several neighborhoods in El Paso County were placed on pre-evacuation orders as fire managers closely watched the forecast.
Sandra Fales wiped away tears Wednesday morning as she pulled clothes for her three children from the trunk of her car. She and her children spent the night at the Red Cross shelter at the Southeast YMCA .
After watching the fire for hours, Fales was ordered to evacuate around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
"I watched it roll down the hill as it took out everything," Fales said. "The flames just took it all out."
In a neighborhood north of the Air Force Academy, families raced to pack up their cars afternoon after hearing that they should be prepared to flee.
The fire was still about 5 miles away, but the wind was blowing north.
"I'm just taking anything that is irreplaceable, photos, baby books," said Julie Gwisdalla as she loaded her SUV. "It's pretty scary to think your home is going to burn up."
For Stefani, an Army surgeon who returned from Afghanistan a month ago, the loss of his home came after a horrific time in which he fled the flames.
He was watching a televised news conference Tuesday about the fire when he noticed leaves rustling in the wind. He walked up the street to get a view of the mountain behind his home and saw flames a mile away and moving fast.
With his wife and son in Denver, he rushed back to get their dog and pack some essential items: the title to their car, computer hard drives, birth certificates, some of his items from Iraq and Afghanistan, a baby blanket and clothes.
Embers and ash began falling and thick smoke covered the driveway. While he packed, his wife called.
"I can't talk," he said. "I need to load the car."
His brief and rushed tone worried her.
"I don't scare easily," he said. "My wife knows that. I was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I saw a lot of trauma there. But I sounded rattled."
On Tuesday night, the enormity of what had happened to him and his wife hit hard. They had to go and buy copies of the two books they read to their son each night, "Goodnight Moon" and "Pat the Bunny."
And they had to replace his favorite teddy bear that makes a noise when it's squeezed.
When their son squeezed the bear's belly and they heard that familiar sound, "that was pretty emotional. We both cried."
He said he feels lucky because he has insurance and an Army community that cares about him and his family. They are now looking for a new place to live and hope to lease something within a week.
"Then, it's starting over from scratch."
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or [email protected]
Denver Post staff writers Kurtis Lee, Tom McGhee, Jordan Steffen and Erin Udell contributed to this report.
June 27, 2012
By The Denver Post Staff
As the Waldo Canyon fire burned out of control Wednesday, stories emerged of harrowing escapes from the flames, heartbreaking realizations that homes were gone forever, and heroic efforts by residents of Colorado Springs to help their besieged neighbors. Here are some of those stories:
Brian Holcombe was talking on a cell phone with his wife when she got the news that the flames had crossed over the Flying W Ranch no more than 50 yards from their home.
"She just fell to the floor and she was crying out, it was just so devastating. She said it's in our neighborhood, it's in our neighborhood, Brian. It is on Majestic."
Thirty minutes later, someone from their burglar alarm company called to say the alarm in their home on Majestic Drive had gone off, a sign that windows had broken.
The home they moved into six years ago might still be standing, but Holcomb doubts it survived the Waldo Canyon inferno gobbling homes in Colorado Springs.
Among the small items of incalculable worth that the Holcombes wish they had taken from the house is a box filled with notes they exchanged while courting.
Miracles happen, Holcombe said, but he doesn't expect divine intercession.
"It never occurred to us that that was going to be the last time we saw our house."
Jacki Grad and her family moved into their home in the Peregrine area a little more than a year ago.
Saturday her family was put on pre-evacuation notice and she packed their belongings. When they were told to evacuate Tuesday evening they were ready.
"When I went out to the car, ash was falling and it was glowing orange," Grad said.
She said she drove about a quarter mile to a stop sign — and then sat there for about 45 minutes before traffic began heading down the mountain.
While people were concerned and in a hurry to evacuate, they remained polite, she said. It took several hours to complete a drive that usually takes seven minutes.
"I kept looking back to see if the flames were behind us," Grad said. "When we reached I-25, I looked at the mountain and saw orange balls of homes burning. That's when it turned dire."
Grad and her family drove to Denver to get a hotel room, but everywhere they went was booked. She said she was told the closest available room was in Fort Collins.
After spending the night in the shelter at Lewis Palmer High School in Monument, Grad awoke to a fire that had doubled in size.
She feels confident that her home survived the night, but on Wednesday she stared at the plumes of smoke rising off the mountain.
"Today's winds are concerning," Grad said. "Clearly our community will be change forever. The question is are you going to be able to go back to something."
The Rodriguez family's truck could barely hold all the food it was carrying. Carts of milk and juice were buried under layers of canned goods, bread and snack food.
Lorena Rodriguez, her husband and three sons eagerly unloaded the food at the Red Cross shelter at the Southeast YMCA.
"It's too sad. Some people worked so hard and now they've lost everything," Rodriguez said. "This time it's someone else — we could be the next ones."
The Rodriguez family decided to help earlier Wednesday morning while they were eating breakfast together. From their kitchen table they went door-to-door in their Colorado Springs neighborhood collecting whatever they could.
Few people turned them away.
"I'm so proud of our community," Rodriquez said.
Aaron Winter, manager of the Flying W Ranch that burned down near Colorado Springs, didn't choke up when talking about the loss of the historic ranch on Tuesday. But he did when talking about the local law enforcement officers carrying out evacuations in the ranch area that includes a foothills subdivision.
"You're out there with those dust devils swirling around. You're getting hit in the eyes with ash. You're coughing because there is so much smoke. But you can get in your vehicles and roll up the windows. Then you realize what those cops are going through. They are out there with little masks on, waving their arms in the thick smoke, trying to get everybody out of there safely."
His voice cracked before he continued.
"I give props to those cops. What they are doing is amazing."
Ardene Hagadorn remembers barreling smoke right before she fled her home on Garden of the Gods Road.
"I watched the smoke build at work all day," Hagadorn said. "When I got home, it all turned into a whirlwind right then."
Hagadorn packed what she could. Before she left, two officials had stopped by her home and told her that "she had to leave now."
She went to a grocery store parking lot and called her mother. It took her hours to get out of the lot and to the shelter in Monument.
"It's all scary and unbelievable," she said. "But I'm here and we're safe. Everything else can be replaced."
Hagadorn did not know how close the fire got to her home overnight.
Ray Olvera did not think the flames would move over the ridge toward his home. Tuesday night when he looked out his window, he could not believe how close they were.
"The flames jumped the ridge and were heading right toward us," Olvera said. "At that point it became an 'Oh my God moment."
He packed what he could.
"By the time I closed the hatch of my car it was black, pouring smoke and ash everywhere," he said.
When he broke loose from the stop-and-go traffic on I-25, he drove to the shelter in Monument where he spent the night.
Mari Crannell drove from her home in Fountain to volunteer at the Red Cross shelter at the Southeast YMCA in Colorado Springs.
Crannell said she felt blessed that her son made it home from a camp site last weekend that was dangerously close to the fire.
"I have to help," Crannell said, as she unloaded diapers from the back of a truck.
Crannell was at the shelter Tuesday night as evacuees began to arrive. When she returned to the shelter to check-in with the families Wednesday morning, some had learned that their homes were destroyed, most were still waiting for news.
"The not knowing is hardest for everyone," Crannell said.
Wednesday, Crannell was with a woman when she found a photo of her charred home on the Internet. It was the first time the woman had learned her house had been destroyed.
"I gave her a big hug," Crannell said. "I held her hand while she got the help she needed."
In addition to her time, Crannell donated coolers, snacks and helped assemble food boxes for evacuees and firefighters. The community response has been overwhelming, Crannell said.
"I think our community is extremely strong. There's been an outpouring of support I've never seen before."
Sandra Fales wipes away tears as she pulls out clothes for her three children from the trunk of her car. Fales and her children spent the night at the Red Cross Shelter set up at the Southeast YMCA last night.
After watching the fire for hours, Fales was ordered to evacuate around 11 p.m.
"I watched it roll down the hill as it took out everything," she said. "The flames just took it all out."
Fales lives in the west side of the city, off Fillmore Street. She said she does not know if her home survived the night, but she's not holding out hope.
"I'm just trying to compose myself before I go back inside to my kids," Fales said. "It's going to be 50 questions and I don't have the answers."
She said today is her 3-year-old daughter's birthday.
Mark Stanislawski holds his wife Lucretia as she cries, trembling as she recalls Tuesday night's evacuation from their home.
"Horrifying. It was absolutely terrifying watching those flames," Lucretia said.
The two live in the Rockrimmon area and were ordered to evacuate shortly before 5 p.m. They spent Tuesday night in the YMCA shelter.
While she was driving south on I-25, Stanislawski watched the sky darken as she approached her home.
"It got blacker and blacker. When I got home it was pitch black and ash and embers were flying everywhere," she said.
She could not call her husband because the smoke was so heavy it was clogging cell phone service. Within 17 minutes of arriving home, Stanislawski was out the door again with whatever she could pack.
"There were just flames, flames, flames," she said.
Seth and Laurie Grotelueschen sat for hours in a field near the U.S. Air Force Academy airfield, watching fire creep through the Peregrine neighborhood at the base of Blodgett Peak.
Using a police scanner, they listened as fire crews moved from house to house, recording addresses as they were called out. They heard a neighbor's address, then the news that a flame front was approaching and then crews being ordered to flee.
"These poor guys are fighting their hearts out," Seth said as fierce winds kicked up, the sky darkened and the view disappeared. "They keep saying they will defend the houses ..."
Denver Post staff writers Jordan Steffen, Kirk Mitchell, Tom McGhee, Ryan Parker, Nancy Lofholm and Jeremy Meyer contributed to this report
June 29, 2012
President praises sense of community, firefighters’ efforts
By Sarah Burnett
COLORADO SPRINGS — Standing among the charred remains of the neighborhood hardest hit by the Waldo Canyon fire, a stunned President Barack Obama on Friday told the same firefighters who days earlier had fought to contain the flames and their devastation that the families whose homes they saved — and the rest of the country — are in their debt.
"For those families, the work and the sacrifice of those firefighters means the world to them," Obama said later during a speech outside a Colorado Springs fire station.
"They are genuine heroes."
Obama flew to Colorado on Friday afternoon, just hours after he designated the state a federal disaster area.
He toured the Mountain Shadows neighborhood — where more than one-third of the 347 homes burned by the Waldo Canyon fire were located — as well as a fire station and a Red Cross evacuation shelter.
As his motorcade made its way into Mountain Shadows, it passed stretches of charred grass and homes burned to the ground, with water shooting from melted pipes. Burned-out cars sat in driveways. Everywhere, fences were torn down and thrown into the street. Smoke was visible from the area around Blodgett Peak to the north. The only people to be seen were firefighters and other emergency personnel.
"The devastation is enormous," Obama said afterward.
But he noted that it's in a crisis that America comes together.
"We've got to make sure that we have each other's backs," Obama said. "And that spirit is what you're seeing in terms of volunteers, in terms of firefighters, in terms of government officials. Everybody is pulling together to try to deal with this situation."
Obama asked Gov. John Hickenlooper earlier in the week about coming to the area to see the damage and to personally show support to the firefighters, evacuees and the rest of Colorado.
The visit was not without its critics. Some said it would divert resources from fighting the fire — which Hickenlooper and Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach insisted would not be the case — while others said Obama was using his office and the fire to make a high-profile stop in a battleground state in a tight election year.
And while there's no doubt the visit demonstrated one of the political benefits of incumbency, Bach and U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn — both Republicans — said they appreciated that the president came.
"It was more than a photo op for him. He clearly wanted to say to the people, the firefighters, 'This matters, and the country has your back.' That means a lot," Bach said. "Yes, it is election season, but this is a conservative county not likely to vote for him. So the fact he would come into this bastion of conservatism shows me a lot. I'm very thankful."
Lamborn, typically one of Obama's biggest critics, said he gave the president "a heartfelt thank you."
"I told him I appreciated his concern for Colorado Springs and for Colorado," he said.
Lamborn said after the visit that more planes used to drop fire retardant will be coming to Colorado from the East and West Coasts.
The federal-disaster designation means Colorado will receive disaster- unemployment assistance and crisis counseling, said FEMA spokesman Jerry Felice. Hickenlooper has submitted a request for a major disaster declaration that would include additional programs, as well as statewide hazard mitigation, but that request is still under review, Felice said.
Lamborn and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet flew to Colorado with Obama aboard Air Force One. They were met on the tarmac by Bach; Hickenlooper; U.S. Sen. Mark Udall; Rich Harvey, incident commander for the Waldo Canyon fire; and Jerri Marr, forest supervisor for the Pike and San Isabel forests, among others.
Bach rode through the city in the same vehicle as Obama, passing crowds that lined the sidewalks in some areas. Along Garden of the Gods Road, a pair of children held a sign that read, "Save Colorado."
As they drove into Mountain Shadows, Bach said, the mood in their vehicle was somber. Obama was "very taken by what he saw."
Along Majestic Drive, now a line of blackened foundations with an occasional home still standing, the president got out to speak with and thank firefighters. At Fire Station 9 a short time later, he did the same.
At his final stop of the day, the Southeast YMCA Family Center, Obama was greeted by cheers from the crowd of about 40 volunteers and evacuees.
"You guys are making us proud and are a great source of inspiration," he told volunteers.
Denise Locke, whose family of five was evacuated from the Air Force Academy, said they came to the shelter to have lunch. When they heard the president was coming, they stayed.
On Tuesday night, Locke said, a helicopter pilot circled her neighborhood five or six times, dumping water he had scooped out of a reservoir.
"He actually put the fire out and saved our homes," Locke said. "It's a blessing. He was not giving up."
Locke said having the president here was "awesome."
"I know that everybody's bashing him ... but whatever," she said. "It means a lot to know we're not just getting pushed by the wayside. He knows homes are lost, and he's just out here to say, 'Hey, I know homes are lost, and we're doing what we can to help.' "
June 30, 2012
By Kirk Mitchell
COLORADO SPRINGS — Just as a firestorm roared into Mountain Shadows, residents fleeing the flames saw one of their neighbors pulling into his garage on Rossmere Street.
Now, after Friday's confirmation that the remains of two people had been found in the rubble of the home, they fear that that man and his wife perished in the Waldo Canyon firestorm.
The couple — both in their 70s — have not been seen since Tuesday night's conflagration. And they haven't answered their cellphones.
Roger Yanda of 2870 Rossmere St. said he and his wife started calling their neighbors' cellphones Tuesday evening.
"He's normally pretty good about answering his cellphone," Yanda said. "Since Tuesday, I haven't heard anything from him."
The couple were the only people living at the now-burned-out home at 2910 Rossmere St., which authorities identified Thursday as the location where one body was found.
Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey said Friday afternoon that the remains of a second person had been found in the same home.
Family members of the couple, reached Friday, declined to comment.
Authorities have not confirmed the identities of the two people who died, but Yanda said he believed it was his neighbors who perished in the firestorm unleashed by the Waldo Canyon fire Tuesday afternoon.
During the height of Tuesday's blaze, Yanda's 24-year-old son, Ross Yanda, was leaving his father's house with a load of valuables when he saw the man who lived next door pull into his garage.
"I thought it was a little odd," Ross Yanda said. "We were among the last to leave, and he was pulling in as we were leaving."
Roger Yanda said the woman who lives next door called his home on Sunday to make sure that his family knew that the wildfire could reach them and they should be ready to go.
The home at 2910 Rossmere St. burned to the ground, according to images Roger Yanda saw in The Denver Post, he said.
The Yandas have lived next door to the couple since 2000.
The inability to reach them by phone was of great concern. The worry grew worse Thursday night when the Yandas could not find their neighbors at a community meeting held for people who were evacuated. So the Yandas spoke with members of the American Red Cross and asked them to search for their neighbors. The couple had not reported in to The Red Cross.
Several hours later, authorities announced that they had found the remains of one person at the Rossmere Street home and that a second person who lives there is missing.
Then came Friday's news of a second confirmed victim.
"They are a great couple. They were very quiet," Roger Yanda said. "There isn't much left of their house."
He said the woman used a cane to get around. The Yandas often saw her gardening. She had birdfeeders in the backyard of the couple's home, which was worth somewhere around $400,000.
"She had a condition that made it hard for her to get around," Roger Yanda said. "They were very comfortable."
The man who lives in the home, who retired from a management position at an airline, had elaborate computer equipment and often communicated with former colleagues.
He would tell Roger Yanda that he loved the area because it felt like they lived in the country even though they were in the city. Coyotes, bears, wild turkeys and cougars often were seen in their neighborhood.
"I think he was planning on staying there the rest of their lives," Roger Yanda said. "I wish I knew what their status was."
Yanda, a software engineer at United Health Group, said his home appears to be the only only left standing in the neighborhood, according to photographs.
"Our house looks like it hasn't been touched," he said.
Denver Post staff writer Jeremy P. Meyer contributed to this report.
July 6, 2012
Ridge along hiking trail may contain origin of catastrophic Waldo Canyon fire
By Jeremy P. Meyer and John Ingold
The deadly Waldo Canyon fire appears to have started just off a hiking trail west of Colorado Springs, a location that firefighters searched unsuccessfully the day before the wind-fanned blaze exploded June 23.
Although El Paso County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Kramer said he was "not at liberty" to reveal the precise point of origin, coordinates posted on a federal fire-management website and dispatch recordings of conversations between firefighters indicate the fire started on a ridge along the popular Waldo Canyon hiking trail.
On Thursday, investigators said they had not determined how the fire began.
The fire was officially reported at about noon June 23 and went on to burn 18,247 acres, destroy 347 houses and kill Barbara Everett, 73, and William Everett, 74, in their home in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood.
The fire is 95 percent contained and has cost $14.5 million to fight.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office late Saturday night issued a news release confirming that a resident in Crystal Park reported seeing smoke in the hills north of Cave of the Winds at 7:49 p.m. June 22.
Firefighters from four agencies responded to investigate but disbanded the search at dusk. Firefighters returned the next morning.
"Could it be a campfire?" one firefighter asks on archived dispatch recordings from June 22.
Winds dispersing the smoke made it difficult to find the source.
"That's a happy thought," said another firefighter about the blustery weather.
The next day, as a large plume of smoke developed to the west of the city, firefighters scrambled to get in position to locate the fire — even attempting to ask the pilot of a plane flying over to help find the wildfire.
"This is the same place we had fire last night," an unidentified firefighter from the Cascade Volunteer Fire Department is heard to say over the radio. "It is on a ridge trail."
Another firefighter on the recorded conversation said he and a crew hiked the area on the morning of June 23 to find the source of the smoke reported the night before.
"We hiked around there for quite a while," the unidentified firefighter said over the dispatch recording. "There was nothing at that time. But it looks like it was there."
Reached on Thursday by The Denver Post, a member of the Cascade Fire Department refused to talk about the fire's first days, saying he needed approval from the federal incident team before talking to media.
The National Weather Service in Pueblo said skies were clear and no thunderstorms were in the area June 22 and 23, making it unlikely that lightning struck the area.
Investigators have asked people who were in the Waldo Canyon area June 22 and 23 to call if they may have seen something that could help the investigation. Federal authorities are working together with local agencies on the investigation.
In pinpointing the origin of a wildfire, investigators interview eyewitnesses and the first-arriving firefighters for details on what they saw. But the most important questions are asked of the landscape, said Paul Steensland, who was one of the U.S. Forest Service's top wildfire investigators before he retired.
Steensland, who investigated the Hayman fire among hundreds of others, now works as a consultant but said he had not been contacted on the Waldo Canyon fire.
Every fire develops its own personality as it grows, influenced by wind, terrain and fuel, Steensland said.
Pushed by wind, the fire's head races forward, while the body spreads outward at an angle and the tail stretches slowly backward.
When investigators arrive near the origin site, they begin to read the clues that nod back toward the starting point.
The fire's head burns hot and quickly, leaving no unburned grass in its path except for in little eddies behind rocks, while the flanks may have sprigs of dry but unburned grass lying in the burned area.
Step by step, investigators zigzag between the flanks as they funnel toward the origin site, Steensland said. When they get close — within feet — investigators may even be on their hands and knees, reading the baked-in tilt of the grass blades, something known as "foliage freeze."
Once investigators find the "specific origin site," Steens-land said, they look even closer.
"Sometimes, it's really big and obvious like a campfire ring," he said. "And sometimes, it's really small like a match."
The wildfire detectives might even run magnets over the ground, looking for flecks of metal.
Once they find what started the fire, investigators again turn their attention outward in an effort to find the culprit.
"At this point, it really does shift just to good old-fashioned detective work," he said.
Steensland said fire-starters will sometimes leave behind evidence that links them to the fire scene — he recalls one such person who dropped his cellphone while leaving the area.
Firefighters are often trained to write down license-plate numbers or make note of people they see in the area when they arrive at a fire, Steensland said. Witnesses may come forward with evidence. The fire-starter may even admit to starting the blaze. And, if they don't, investigators can often pull DNA off of some evidence, such as an arsonist's ignition device.
"You're going to use any and all tools in the toolbox to try to identify who is responsible," Steensland said.
But, because wildfires often start in remote areas with few people watching, finding a culprit who doesn't want to be found is often challenging.
"That's why a fair number of these fires go unsolved," Steensland said.
January 24, 2013
Jan. 24, 2013
To The Judges:
Eight big fires raged across Colorado - in a tourist town, in western Larimer County, across highways at the New Mexico border, along a popular hiking trail near Colorado Springs.
Temperatures had crossed the 100 degree mark and the relative humidity was near zero. Trees and grasses were tinder dry. Federal fire managers ranked the day a “super 6” on the 1-6 scale they use to assess fire conditions and hoped what they knew could happen – a spark whipped into an inferno by the slightest wind - would not.
But it did happen. The Waldo Canyon fire, a hint of smoke that eluded frantic firefighters late Friday night, stoked into a horizontal tornado of flame on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 26 rolling through neighborhoods built into parched hillsides in the city of Colorado Springs. By its end, the cataclysmic fury had scorched 18,247 acres, destroyed 345 homes and killed two people. Insured losses of $352 million made it the most destructive fire in state history. By every numeric measure, the Waldo Canyon fire was catastrophic. But the fire also shook the composure of the city. Wave after wave of evacuations were issued as ash rained down on the city. Swirling winds that confounded fire meteorologists moved fingers of fire through neighborhoods as 32,000 terrified residents stared at smoke shrouded hillsides, hoping for a glimpse of their homes.
The Denver Post tracked the Waldo Canyon fire from the start, but when the blaze became extraordinary on the hottest day in Colorado Springs history, the reporting and photography kicked into high gear. Reporters began live-tweeting the frantic evacuation of residents from street corners as panic collided with the evening rush hour. Photographers chasing the massive High Park fire 150 miles north turned around and headed to prime view points as close to Waldo Canyon as they could get, capturing devastating images of the blaze as it consumed the Mountain Shadows neighborhood.
The coverage began with a tweet at 3:59 p.m. Tuesday and developed into a comprehensive, but quick moving and sustained report that updated people as many as 30 times per day. We pushed real-time information to anxious citizens - some who were watching the calamity unfold from military deployment overseas – until the fire was officially contained on July 10. For days city officials refused to release information about damage to homes. Rather than prolong the inevitable, The Denver Post used aerial photography and plat maps to develop a before-and-after interactive feature that allowed residents to survey for themselves the damage to more than 300 homes long before official notification was released. The photography outraged fire managers, but the newspaper received notes from hundreds of residents grateful for the quick delivery of the mostly bad news.
As people returned to sift through the ashes of their ruined homes, The Denver Post continued to probe the origin of the fire and untangle public policy that resulted in delayed and chaotic evacuation orders that placed people in harm’s way. They also learned that cityemergency managers had been warned a decade before that without fire mitigation rules, foothills homes were at risk of being wrecked by fire – as was proved by the survival of a few houses where brush had been cleared and shake-shingle roofs had been removed.
The Denver Post’s coverage of this devastating fire was not only a community service, but the ultimate in real-time news coverage. We are pleased to submit this work for consideration for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Local Coverage of Breaking News.
Gregory L. Moore, editor
Winners
Prize Winner in Breaking News Reporting in 2013:
Staff
For its comprehensive coverage of the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., that killed 12 and injured 58, using journalistic tools, from Twitter and Facebook to video and written reports, both to capture a breaking story and provide context.
Breaking News Reporting
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Breaking News Reporting in 2013:
Staff
For its complete and sensitive coverage of the shooting massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and 6 adults, using digital tools as well as traditional reporting to tell the story quickly while portraying the stunned community’s grief.
The Jury
The Jury
Mike Connelly(Chair )
editor
Traci Bauer
vice president/digital strategy and development
Paul Cheung
global interactive editor
Mark E. Russell
editor
Carol Stark
editor
Winners in Breaking News Reporting
Staff
For its enterprising coverage of a deadly tornado, using social media as well as traditional reporting to provide real-time updates, help locate missing people and produce in-depth print accounts even after power disruption forced the paper to publish at another plant 50 miles away.
No award
No award
Staff
For its comprehensive coverage, in print and online, of the shooting deaths of four police officers in a coffee house and the 40-hour manhunt for the suspect.
Staff
For its swift and sweeping coverage of a sex scandal that resulted in the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports.
2013 Prize Winners
Adam Johnson
An exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.
Ayad Akhtar
A moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage.
Sharon Olds
A book of unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self-knowledge.
Caroline Shaw
A highly polished and inventive a cappella work uniquely embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects (New Amsterdam Records).