The Mason Gulch Fire
July 11, 2005 - My Life
When I used to live in Connecticut, I'd hear about brushfires in California and Arizona, and certainly thought it was terrible for anyone who had to deal with the situation directly. But these were things that were so far away, like California earthquakes and Kansas tornadoes - they didn't really affect me.
Now that I'm in Colorado, I'm directly exposed to talk about the Mason Gulch fire, which quadrulped in size on Sunday, and now covers over 8000 acres. About 1000 people in a small town called Beulah were evacuated - I think that's actually the entire town's populace.
Apparently, the fire was started by a lightning strike last Tuesday or Wednesday. The fire isn't threatening the areas where I live or work, but it's near enough that I can see smoke in the distance. At that distance, the smoke is actually a dark blue shade - difficult to distinguish from clouds. But a neighbor was complaining about ash in the pool, and it's definately overly hazy of late. In order to reach where we live, the fire would have to entirely destroy a number of towns, which won't happen - it seems the major problem is getting water to the fire, because it's burning in a remote area. No buildings have yet been destroyed.
Now, in my hour-long drive to and from work in Colorado Springs, I've actually seen a couple small fires. The first wasn't exactly tiny - probably about a 10x10 foot area just on the side of the road at the intersection of route 50 and route 115. It was a fairly well-populated area, and I can only assume that someone was burning something, and that it was an intentional, controlled fire. The second was definately not intentional. On the south edge of Colorado Springs, the divider separating the two highway lanes has a strip of grass about four feet wide, and I saw a patch of grass about eight feet long on fire one day as I was driving home. I never heard anything about either of those fires, so I can only assume they were put out quickly and without incident. Let's hope the Mason Gulch fire doesn't do any real damage.
The Pueblo Chieftain has an article with some maps of the fire area, which is about 30-45 minutes away to the Southeast of Cañon City, where I live.
Update: July 12th - 12,000 Acres, 30% contained
Update: July 14th - 70% contained
When you hear the fire roaring from your bedroom window, it gets your attention.
Chas Clifton
They were out pretty fast, and non threatening.
The Hayman fire was a different story (so I'm told, I wasn't here then) and has a lot of folks scared.