We start to see around noon those showers and thunderstorms develop over the mountains.
From K-R-D-O News Channel 13, this is a breaking news special report.
Welcome back.
Along with dinner and bonus, I'm John Carroll and we are continuously covering the Walo Canyon
Fire burning west of Colorado Springs this morning.
And just be alert here.
You're doing a great job on your channel of keeping people informed so folks keep your
TVs on and stay tuned.
And this is nothing to panic over but simply pack your things.
We've given you plenty of time to just get all that together instead of throwing it and
saying this is happening now.
And I knew at that point it wasn't the normal brush fire that we hear every once in a while.
I knew it was going to be something, but I don't think anybody knew what it was going
to be in the end.
The area is clear right now.
I've got a spot that popped up here down in that Queens Canyon quite a little bit.
I'm going to look at it real quick.
That's 412.
I'm coming up to take a look.
A lot of smoke up there.
I'm not hopeful we can get an air tanker in there.
This is Evert 2.
We do need to start immediate evacuation of area 4.
I want units to respond.
Roll horns and notifications any way necessary to start making notifications through there.
I know we have traffic problems, but at least they can start getting packed up and ready
to evacuate when the road is clear.
So not a surprise to hear that if there is indeed a fire in that area that it's growing
relatively rapidly.
People from Manitou Springs got this call to evacuate at 1 in the morning.
Mandatory evacuations in the city will be under mandatory evacuation until 8 p.m. tomorrow
night.
I think right now, all I can say to you is that I think it's important, most important,
that we all keep in our minds and our hearts all those people who are affected by this.
They're going to try to get them up this morning so hopefully they can get it up and make some
progress before it gets any worse.
So many different developments that are happening all the time on this.
Assessing the entire area where there are destroyed homes.
Don't listen to rumors.
Don't listen to anything.
But when we're telling you information from the people who are actually fighting the fires.
Where do we need to get our crews?
What information do we need to get out to the public?
And how do we make sure that everybody is aware of what's going on the magnitude of
it without creating fear?
Because at this point, we didn't think there was reason to fear.
For us it was, for the whole week it was intense because it was people who wanted to know what
was going on.
They were thriving for information.
We ended up being the first one on the scene at the Waldo Canyon hiking area.
We got to watch all the different firefighters get out, watch all the wildland crew.
The workflow is something that you really have to experience to believe.
On that information coming in and letting them know what the situation was because it just
got so bad.
There's so much access to information out there that there was almost too much information
to get.
The media was like the last people to ask for information just because there were so many
people that had information there.
There's people that knew that whole area better than the back of their hand.
So you didn't need media as much.
The fact that everyone was kind of on edge made it a little more difficult, but I don't
think anything really prepares you to cover an event like this.
Yeah, it was definitely different than normal because on a normal weekend we only have one
show and we were kind of going all out.
We were going wall-to-wall coverage.
It was clearly out of control and that was scary knowing how close it was to homes.
Not one of those come-and-go stories.
This is something that is going to be pretty devastating and still thinking about it gives
me a little bit of chills.
It's one of those things that you couldn't say the information enough, I think.
People that are just tuning in, just seeing what was happening, you had to repeat.
You had to let them know what was happening.
Last information I had from one of the shelters is that those folks who have been evacuated...
I remember coming back from Denver on Sunday and turning on the TV and saying, huh, wow,
looks like something big is happening.
So I actually called K.R.D.O. I called work and I was like, do you guys need me by any
chance because it looks like you might need me.
And they were like, yes, come in, come in, come in.
We didn't think there was reason to fear.
We knew it was farther back, it was away from homes, away from structures and all we needed
to do was get the information and remind people, hey, here's the smoke, here's what you're
seeing.
As soon as we came out of the pass, we saw the smoke coming over on the left-hand side
and we were like, oh, what's this?
And we saw a plume and then we pulled over real quick so I just got some quick shots
for just VO coverage and all of a sudden the first fire truck came by and we ended up being
the first one on the scene at the Waldo Canyon hiking area.
What I'd like to remember back, what I remember is just a lot of press live shots over at
Coronado and UCCS and just watching this burning inferno.
I was, my complex where I live, had a pool party and we were going to the pool party
and I walk around the corner and I look up and I was like, oh, dear God, and saw the
smoke, immediately called the office, they told me what was going on, how big it was.
My wife looked at me and I said, let's spend as much time we can together because it's
going to be a busy day.
I was there from the very first day.
We got a call from our boss and he told me wear comfortable shoes because it looks like
it's going to be a big one and he was right.
I was supposed to go to an Olympic athlete signing and on my way to that, I saw the big
plume coming up from above Highway 24.
I've lived here my whole life, I know the area, so I tried calling my producer for the
weekend and she didn't pick up.
I tried calling her like seven times so I called Joe Cole our news director and he was
like, I was like, hey, there's this fire up here in the canyon.
I know the area.
It's not a good sign seeing that plume of smoke up there because it's going to be hard
to get to.
He want me to go to it.
I had a more interesting start, I think, to Otto Canyon because my first day of work
was that Monday.
So my plane landed in Colorado Springs on Friday.
I woke up Saturday and my new home was on fire.
So I moved out here in suitcases.
I'd never been to Colorado Springs before in my life.
Here I am about to start my first job in television news just graduating college and the first
story I cover is the most destructive wildfire in my new home.
I was heading to Donkey Derby days with my wife and family and I got the tweet from the
fire department and I looked down at the tweet and read the tweet from them and I was like,
oh, we just passed a fire because I was up in divide.
So I just looked in my rearview mirror and I could see the huge plume of smoke straight
from the get-go.
At that point, I just started calling all my coworkers.
I wasn't even working that day and I just started calling them saying, hey, you may
want to go check this out.
Right now, we're estimating the acres on the fire at 2,000 acres with 0% containment.
Yeah it was definitely different than normal because on a normal weekend, we only have
one show and we were kind of going all out.
We were going wall-to-wall coverage and that wasn't normal for my station because we're
a little bit of a smaller station so we had everyone, it was all hands on deck.
We were actually facing a natural disaster and that doesn't happen often and since I've
lived here, it hasn't happened so it was a really big deal.
I think we did a huge service for the community just trying to keep people informed in what's
going on otherwise they would have no outlet for information.
It was difficult because A, I've lived in this town for a decade now so it's my city
that is burning, which was devastating to watch, knowing that this landscape is never
going to look the way it has for the generations that preceded the fire but also we had a fundamental
role in letting people know that they had to get out of harm's way.
We knew that people were hanging on every word where people have watched the news for
those press conferences.
Every day at four o'clock people were watching those press conferences, people were showing
up to those press conferences, never seen that before.
I think it's finally starting to show up in terms of we were able to hold on to the majority
of this fire through a major wind event yesterday and now we've finally got all those people
in place and a little bit of the weather in our favor, I wouldn't say it's in our favor,
it's still going to be hot, dry, windy and with potential for thunderstorms but at least
we've got a better day than we've had.
Do we need to be on the air?
How important is this?
What was the magnitude of this?
Because we were all still trying to figure it out.
We saw the smoke, we heard that the fire was growing and that it wasn't going to be contained
but how serious was this?
Do we need to stay on the air?
Coming out we usually cover so many fires.
At first I thought it was overkill.
I was like, oh man, here's just another fire we're going to get it over with real quick,
everything's going but then as it started going and perpetuating throughout the day,
it just spread and you saw how big it was going to actually be and what possible impacts
it could have and then just as it progressed, you know, the fear became more and more.
The fact that everyone was kind of on edge made it a little more difficult but I just,
I don't think anything really prepares you to cover an event like this, especially when
it's your community.
I mean, you're in the box with everybody else and you need to want to try and be an outside
looking in but with that type of fire, you're every, you're part of it, you're just as part
of it as, I mean, maybe not as much as some of these people at home but you're really
part of this fire and the coverage of it and making sure people know about it is a big
part of how to handle it.
Probably one of the most intense things that a lot of us in news will go through, an actual
event, a disastrous event.
There was times that I was on two different phones at the same time.
I was communicating with the desk, I was communicating with the anchors, I was trying to communicate
with reporters all while trying to get sound from, you know, the PIOs and it just was completely
different than anything I've covered.
I've been doing this for 10 years and I've never seen just a huge media melee like that
before.
I think there's a lot of just mismanagement, everyone's just kind of freaking out, send
everyone everywhere but there was no real game plan and everything which is what you
do in your hometowns, you know, under attack which has never been under before.
This is going to sound bad but the truth of the matter is you're getting news long enough
you learn to separate yourself from the story.
My job as a photographer is to focus my camera, iris properly, make sure my white balance
is on and roll on what's happening so we can show everyone.
My job isn't to think what the consequences of what's happening are.
If I start focusing on that then I'm not going to be able to properly do my job.
It's just like policemen or firemen when they get in a panic situation, obviously they
have a more important job than I do but it's a similar manner in that your mindset is to
do your job first and then worry about what's happening later.
Up here is where the fire has been coming down.
You can see the rock quarry that's been in our shot as well so it's up into the mountain
shadows and Peregrine neighborhood guys and all the looky-loos need to get out of there
because you're just making things.
It was cold.
That Tuesday morning, I remember I was talking to Rachel Elty from Fox 21 and it was like
the morning shift change where they shift from their overnights to their morning people
and we were sitting there chatting and it was calm, it was nice, it wasn't windy yet,
it wasn't hot, it was still about 70 something, like 9 in the morning, maybe even 80, I don't
remember that.
I found an overlook to get a live shot up and I mean my camera is only 13 optical zoom
and I get up there and literally I cannot see the road.
I can't see Centennial from where I'm sitting which really isn't that far away and it's
clear to the naked eye obviously most of the time and at times I get glimpses through and
I just see nose to tail cars going all the way as far as I can see when it opens up.
Fire was pretty much rushing down the mountain by crazy and the press release, I mean the
press conference was, I mean you could hear it in their voice that it's rushing down the
mountain and we can't, we got to figure this out and we got to jump ahead of it.
But it was calm that day, it was 5, 6, 7, 8 hours later, it was like a hell.
The consequences, Rampart Bridge Road, Range Road was one of the best natural or high probability
success points to the containment of this fire to the north.
We've just been told that there now is an evacuation order for the balance of mountain
shadows up through Peregrine so please get that on your newscast right away.
We do have an evacuation order from the incident command for the balance of mountain shadows
up through Peregrine.
About that Tuesday in a historical context other than the fire, that was the hottest
day ever, period in Colorado Springs in a week that was historically hot, I mean we
hit 101, the all time high temperature for Colorado Springs, it was almost 110 in Pueblo,
it was over 100 degrees everywhere.
So that in itself was an historic day.
The wind conditions, the dryness, it had every potential of doing exactly what it did.
You could pick up ash the size of your palm in your hand, I mean in all the way out east
you're getting ash that big so it's like, my gosh, we're raining ash from this fire
and homes are just being demolished by the fire, I mean just destroyed.
So I think that's when I knew, oh boy, oh boy this is going to be a rough week, you know.
That's not just a forest fire, it's not just a grass fire, it's not just your typical fire
that you see working in this business, it's a fire that's going to evacuate and hurt a
lot of people.
The worst case scenario was obviously on Tuesday when it collapsed in on itself forcing the
flames out at that high rate of speed.
You can see the water dropping, oh that's a sign of relief.
It really hit me right in that moment as I was watching the fire from a distance, like
I said you really feel like you're out of the scene looking down in on it and that's
when it finally hit me that this is coming really close to home.
I wanted to be closer but at the same time, you know, I was thinking for my own safety
that it was probably not the best.
And it was in that moment that when the camera turned and you saw the first house go up,
you were still in work mode and you weren't focused but you saw people's lives, you saw
people's pictures and memories and childhood homes just go up in flames and it was at that
moment that you realized it wasn't just trees, it wasn't just grass that this was going to
change our community forever.
This has been a very bad day.
The fire exploded here, many of you were here when it happened, I was here, I mean it exploded
far beyond what could have been predicted, 65 mile an hour winds and it's an active
nature and I think right now, all I can say to you is that I think it's important, most
important that we all keep in our minds and our hearts all those people who are affected
by this.
I think that we all saw what our responsibility was at that point, not only to our station
but also to the viewers and the people in this community who really depended on that
information coming in and letting them know what the situation was because it just got
so bad.
You felt bad, people came to you, you could tell they were scared and they wanted to know,
they wanted to know if their house was still there, what's going on, when can they go back
and you know, we're pretty much fed just about every piece of information we got directly
out to them in an almost instantaneous manner that we knew exactly what they knew.
I had never, in all the years that I've been doing this, I've seen a lot of bad stuff happen
and I have never personally experienced anything like this firsthand so I was in a sense of
what am I doing, I should not be standing here with all this smoke and this ash and
all this, I should not be here but I'm putting myself in harm's way because I really want
people to know what is going on, I don't want them to be harmed.
I think that was the day for me when it actually hit and became a little bit more real for
all of us.
Very monstrous, it was rolling down, it didn't matter who was in its way, it was just going
for it and it was going to burn what it could.
This is a firestorm of epic proportions, we're being watched across the country on how we
handle it and it's absolutely important that we understand that right now as we sit and
breathe right over the hill we've got a ton of people, firefighters from the county, the
city, the state, the feds, all of us arm in arm putting this thing out as we speak.
People that were giving us the information that were the comm cool collected, they were
shaken and in that moment I was just like, you can't even put it into words, it was
just one of those moments of even the people that know what this fire is doing are terrified.
Probably not the safest mindset but being a reporter you always want to get as close
as possible to what's happening so I didn't have that, oh my gosh, what is this, I'm scared
kind of reaction, I just knew I needed to find out what was going on, get the best shots
I could get, get the best sound that I could get and cover it best of my ability.
I think that's a big part of covering Waldo Canyon or covering any story like this is
that you need that confidence to know, you know what, I can't let my emotions get the
best of me, I can't shed tears watching, there was a child I remember running around at the
press conferences because a lot of folks from the neighborhood would come in and just listen
because maybe they didn't want to sit home in front of their television, they wanted
to be there, maybe they were evacuated and there were ashes falling as actually flying
W burned, we heard it over the scanners and they said a structure has been consumed and
we knew that it was flying W and this kid was running around and there was just a big
chunk of ash that fell from the sky and he just grabbed it and started playing with it,
it was just such a symbolic moment.
It was that Tuesday night I went home after my shift was done, you know I had worked since
8am I think I went home at about 10 or 11 that night and I don't know if it was exhaustion,
I don't know what it was but I just remember sobbing, it just I finally broke down and
had that moment, up until that point I had been you know stoic, I had just been straight
faced getting the job done and in that moment I just started crying and I remember coming
in that Wednesday morning just emotionally drained and wondering like how are we going
to do this?
You know this is what we do, this is what we, I heard somewhere someone said, someone
said somewhere you know as a media this is what you're training for, every day you go
to work for the last four or five years you're training, you're training, you're training,
training for this, for this fire that just happened and that's what happened, we were
training.
I can describe the fire in one word I would say was pretty awesome, I mean just the amount
of power, the amount of energy, how quick it came, how many resources it took, how
many people came together, how the community came together I think is overall just be awesome
just to tie all those different elements together.
It's almost sad to say that you can't, you don't feel the emotion, you don't recognize
that you feel the emotion during the heart, the breaking news of 24 hour coverage but
you know you realize later that whoa look at, look at what I just covered and it hit
a lot of people and it's when you get a breath is when you realize the emotions that you
might have been feeling back then that you feel right now.
But we don't have addresses, we can't pinpoint maybe someone seeing their own house burn
then they know but in terms of getting that specific information out it was just going
to be a matter of time, there was no way to convey the specifics of it other than it was
severe and it was historic and that lives were going to be permanently altered by it.
I finally realized when we were driving this person opened the passenger door of their
car, leaned out and just threw up.
I don't know if it was the smoke that we were all inhaling or just the overwhelming sense
of my home is now behind me, I'm leaving it to the fire and to mother nature.
This is going to be something that we're going to be covering for the next 10 years, easy.
It was a game changer.
At the time it wasn't setting in what was happening, I understood what was happening,
I understood the gravity of it in the back of my head but that wasn't, there wasn't
a lot of emotion associated with it, it was more of it's go time.
This is where you have to do your thing right now and make sure, this is history so make
sure it's the best that it can be.
It was mind boggling, how do you become and how can you become when you see your anchors
homes getting evacuated and you're fearful for them.
I mean I remember that Tuesday night Lisa's home was evacuated and she lives not far from
where homes were burned, hers was saved but I remember she was just shaken when she read
through the list of new evacuations that night and read her neighborhood and she ran off
the set because she had a dog at home, her parents were in town visiting and it was one
of those moments that I actually, I got out of the booth, I told someone else to get in
and I just said to Lisa, I was like you got to go home and take care of yourself.
In our community I don't believe that we've had something so devastating roll through,
I've lived here my whole life and sure like I said we have wildfire seasons and some of
them are pretty bad but we have never had 350 homes get burned down.
We have never had people die from this kind of destruction and I think it's just huge
because our community has never seen something like that.
All the other news stories we've ever done were just practice to lead up to a Waldo Canyon
fire type story and it really comes to the core of why journalists are journalists and
why they want to help people.
I became a person that was there to help other people you know and I felt the same way with
other stations, we were no longer ABC, we were no longer NBC, we were just people there
helping other people try to inform, tell stories, bring information.
And being able to stand there and help each other out who has water, who has sunscreen,
you know who knows something because we realize that you know this is more than just our job,
our story that we're covering for the day, this is our community and we have that need
to get the information out to people.
I don't think there will ever be another time for me or I didn't at the time think that
my job would matter as much as it did during the Waldo Canyon.
Waldo was the day that justified a news photographer, I mean that's everything that you were about
just being a journalist of any type, getting out there, getting the story and having a
reason to immediately get it out to your public and immediately you know pass that info because
lives depend on it, people's well-being depends on it, everything depends on it really and
well news is always active, it's not always like that usually you can sit a day or anything
you want to tell people about accidents but this truly mattered and what you did truly
had an impact and you know either helping or hindering people so I think it really showed
the importance of journalism and really proved why we do what we do and why it's such an
addictive aspect of it you know.
You know people are going to want accountability and someone to blame for this for forever,
I think it just happened, it's just something that happened that we all have to deal with
and move on you know pointing fingers doesn't help anybody.
You know it was a draining week but I felt rejuvenated at the end to know that our community
was safe and I know that there can be worse which is hard to believe for this community
but this world is unpredictable.
I felt that it made our jobs important and that was a big deal and it made it one of
the best experiences of my life but it also made it one of the most deep and emotional
experiences of my life to realize that I just covered this giant tragedy and as much as
I was so engulfed in covering it that it hit me all at once that emotionally that later
on what happened as opposed to in the moment.
Being first before you judge any news or news outlets because when stuff like that happens
in the community we're the ones that are really there and telling the stories and behind
the lines and getting our hands dirty you know getting close to it, getting scared,
getting working so long hours, being tired, knowing we have to do it again it was definitely
an experience that I don't think, I don't think if you've never been in news, if you've
never been in news you may not have ever experienced anything quite like covering the Waldo Canyon
fire.
This had never experienced anything like this.
This will be something that you know we will be living with for the rest of our careers.
To date I can honestly say that I have seen and I have covered a lot of national events
whether it be you know church shootings, movie theater shootings, tornadoes.
This was kind of a pinnacle and like a highlight in my career was covering this just the stories
that we told in the video and all of the coverage that we did was just amazing.
Also you know the camaraderie you know amongst all the TV stations we kind of stopped competing
against each other and we kind of were we just became one big family as media and that
was amazing to see that you know we were brought together this way it was sad but it was kind
of amazing that we were all able to kind of function and work together you know for the
greater good of informing you know the public on how things are going.
It's sad because it was beautiful and in a way it still is.
It's a different kind of beauty it's a stark macabre beauty almost.
But it is sad that this will never look the same for us or for our children or for our
children's children you know they won't know the difference but we do.
People that live here on you know off of Wilson Road or off of Trevor Lane who overlooked
the Flying W Ranch and Right Up Queens Canyon they got they you know they moved there for
those views they moved there for the tranquility the sound of the wind moving through those
lush pine forests now there's nothing there's nothing to break the wind there's nothing
to stop the rain it's just nothing.
It's sad.
Those that don't know history are doomed to repeat it so just make sure that you you
know do your mitigation that you do your due diligence don't be throwing your cigarette
butts out the window don't be leaving campfires unattended it's a you know a red flag warning
don't be doing stuff that's going to cause a fire because this can happen and this will
happen again so don't make it be you that's the reason for it.
Working in the media we see a lot of good things in people we see a lot of bad things
in people we see things that we never want to see again or people should never see this
is something that I hope I never see again it was sad very sad it was scary I just you
know hope that it doesn't happen again this year is going to be a dry year we're already
getting ready for this year.
We learned a lot last year I almost want to say here we are again.
With our resources hopefully we can help people connect you need help hopefully you can find
help there's someone on our Facebook page or our website just click the link in the
wind speeds that are now up between 20 and 30 miles per hour sustained with gusts still
between 20 and 40 miles per hour for most areas we'll start to relax a little bit.
There's a couple more on the way everybody's here friendly right this is a friendly audience
two, three, two.
You
