2012 Colorado wildfire coverage: Part 2 by Peter Dettmann

TRIAL BEGINS IN WRECK THAT KILLED FAMILY THE »DENVER & WEST, 4A

TECH KNOW The website LiveLifeLocal offers personal views of a wide range of activities across the U.S., with more than 100 in Colorado. » 8C

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MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2012

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Breaking News: Will stocks rally today in the wake of Spain’s $125 billion rescue? »denverpost.com/breakingnews

Colo. takes a swing

HIGH PARK BLAZE AT 31 SQUARE MILES

Fire blasts over hills

Obama’s and Romney’s teams say the state is a key to the White House. By Sara Burnett The Denver Post

Colorado basked in its newfound status as a swing state in 2008, playing host to the Democratic National Convention and candidate appearances from Denver to Durango. But for all that attention, several dynamics this year make the Centennial State even more competitive — and critical to winning the White House. Unlike 2008, when then-Sen. Barack Obama rode a wave of anti-Republican sentiment with promises of hope and change, there are fewer states this time around that are truly up for grabs. And while Florida and Ohio with their double-digit electoral votes are the big prizes, Obama and Mitt Romney are eyeing Colorado’s nine electoral votes — in combination with other Western states such as Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona — to give them the win. “If you look at the map, Colorado and Nevada are two of the true battleground states,” said Ethan Axelrod, communications director for Project New America, a progressive Denverbased research and strategy organization. “Both states are still very, very close, and I think they’re going to stay that way until November.”

Paths to victory The campaigns use a combination of history, demographics and polling to determine which states are solidly or leaning red or blue and which states are considered tossups. From there, it’s a matter of doing the math — finding ways to combine victories in winnable states to get the candidate to 270 electoral votes, the total needed to win the presidency. A series of polls released last week showed the race tightening in ColoraSWING STATE » 14A

More politics Coverage on

dp election-year trends, issues.

Colorado State Patrol Trooper Jason Kenner speaks with Brittany Harrington at a road closure on U.S. 287 as the High Park fire burned west of Fort Collins on Sunday. A stretch of 287 was among many road closures, this one because of poor visibility caused by smoke. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

Fort Collins-area fire rages out of control, expanding in size as mountain residents flee Elsewhere Fires burn in southern New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah »9A

Rushed Minutes count for residents and fire crews »9A

Photos See a slide show of images from the fire » denverpost.com/ coloradophotos

Send us your photos » youpost.denverpost.com/ submit-your-photos

»denverpost.com/politics

By Tom McGhee and Monte Whaley The Denver Post

laporte» The wildly unpredictable High Park fire grew to 20,000 acres Sunday, stoking worries that its power will only grow. “It’s spread in almost every direction,” said Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith. “It splinters to the south, and then it splinters to the east. I don’t know that we’ve ever seen anything like this before.” By late Sunday, two homes were confirmed destroyed among at least 18 structures burned. One person remained missing, and Smith indicated that person may be dead.

“This fire has a mind of its own, and it’s just telling us what to do,” said Poudre Fire Authority Chief Tom DeMint. He called the blaze a “dirty fire” with the potential to be very destructive. High winds and dry fuels are driving the blaze, forcing more than 2,600 evacuation calls by Sunday evening to people living in Poudre, Rist, Redstone and Mill canyons. Another 325 calls were made just after 8 p.m. for the area south of County Road 38E from Gindler Ranch Road west to Milner Ranch Road. “We’ve had 36 straight hours of evacuations, and that’s just unheard of,” Smith said. “In some areas, even green grass is

Latino grocers feel squeeze from big chains By Yesenia Robles The Denver Post

Three grocery chains catering to Latino customers in the metro area have faced challenges — including bankruptcy — in recent years as large supermarkets have muscled into their business. In the most glaring example, Rancho Liborio — a California-based grocer that opened its fifth Colorado store in Colorado Springs in 2008 — shut down the last of its stores in the state in May. One of its competitors, Azteca Ranch Market, filed for bankruptcy last August, and another, Avanza Supermarkets, has been sold in the past year. Today, stores such as King Soopers are carrying products aimed at the

customers who a few years ago had to rely on specialty stores for many of their needs. The changes are the result of a predictable pattern: As shoppers become diverse and price-conscious, more shops open and competition increases. But as the big chains flex their muscles after recognizing new profit possibilities, midsize chain stores targeting niche markets suffer, while the smallest and most specialized stores find ways to hang on. Grocery-industry professionals in the Denver area have seen the changes for almost five years. “What we’re seeing is sophisticated consumers that say, I can make a stop GROCERY » 7A

burning,” said DeMint, adding that the blaze has burned through many areas twice, including over remnants of previous fires. But even as more than 250 firefighters battled the blaze northwest of Fort Collins, local officials expressed worries that resources were being stretched thin with fires raging in Wyoming and New Mexico. “We’re definitely competing with fires in New Mexico and other areas,” said Nick Christensen, an executive officer with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. The Guernsey State Park fire near Wheatland, Wyo., burned 6 square FIRE » 9A

NATION

“CLYBOURNE PARK” NAMED BEST PLAY A Pulitzer Prize-winning look at race and real estate scores a Tony. »10A

SPORTS

FORWARD TOGETHER The Denver Triathlon helps one group find strength in family. »1B

$MART

ON THE CHEAP Owner Jimmy Armijo bumps fists with Ricki Gonzales, 8, who was at El Mercado de Lafayette with his mother. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

Great outdoor-gear deals do exist. »1C

the denver post B denverpost.com B monday, june 11, 2012

FIRE: Size

Poudre Fire Authority had crews and structural engines to protect this house near Rist Canyon Road from the fire.

keeping crews on the move «

Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

FROM 1A

Map area

Strong winds on Sunday grounded aircraft fighting a 40-square-mile wildfire near the mountain town of Ruidoso in southern New Mexico. Crews were still working to build a fire line. The blaze started Friday and has damaged or destroyed 36 structures. It wasn’t yet known how many of the structures lost were homes. The latest New Mexico fire is smaller than the Whitewater-Baldy fire — the largest in the state’s history — but it’s more concerning to authorities because it started closer to homes, said Dan Ware, a spokesman for the New Mexico State Forestry Division. He said the number of Ruidoso evacuees was in the hundreds. Karen Takai, a spokeswoman for crews battling the Ruidoso fire, said smoke was heavily affecting Capitan, about 5 miles northeast. She said that in addition to the communities that had been evacuated, Capitan and others could face evacuation. Elsewhere Sunday, firefighters were battling a wildfire that blackened 6 square miles in Wyoming’s Guernsey State Park and forced the evacuation of campers and visitors. Cooler weather was helping firefighters in their battle against two other wildfires in southern Utah.

COLORADO

Poudre Park Old Flowers Rd.

Fires near Colorado.

Denver

Burn area as of Sunday evening

Staff writer Tegan Hanlon contributed to this report.

es Rd. Lak

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ing how quickly the fire was moving from atop a nearby ridge. “We got up (to Rist Canyon) around noon, and it was burning good then,” Smith said. “But by 1 o’clock, it had exploded.” Rosemary Filano, 60, said she was chased from her home by a roaring wall of flames. Red Cross officials said they didn’t know how many displaced families would use the center. “It could be zero to 100,” said Adam Rae, a Red Cross spokesman. “But we are prepared to open up multiple facilities if we have to.” Meanwhile, about 20 nervous dogs and cats peered from small cages inside a mobile MaxFund shelter near the gym. Lizz Grenard, who is running the animal shelter, said the animals were confused and antsy. “A lot are used to being on big acreages and running around. It’s tough on them,” she said. The fire was reported around 6 a.m. Saturday as a 2-acre blaze in the Paradise Park area and blew up around noon. At 10 p.m. Saturday, the total acreage burned was estimated at 8,000.

287

an st C yo n Rd. Ri

at Cache La Poudre Middle School

N 5 miles

LAPORTE 25

Buckhorn

Rd.

FORT COLLINS 287

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Weld County

Larimer County

Roosevelt National Forest

KUNC-FM and public safety transmitter towers

Source: Geomac Wildland Fire Support

By Tom McGhee The Denver Post

laporte» A fast-moving blaze such as the High Park fire, which has ripped through 20,000 acres northwest of Fort Collins, puts the rush on homeowners and firefighters alike. • Rosemary Filano, 60, was about to go to bed Saturday night when a neighbor called her a few minutes before midnight with the news that the fire was coming and she had to evacuate. Filano looked out the kitchen window of her Poudre Park residence and saw a “wall of flames” and heard the fire’s roar heading her way. There was time for Filano, who works for American Legacy Firearms in Fort Collins, to grab three bags — her purse, a bag with handguns and ammunition and one with miscellaneous items. In her haste, she had to abandon the last bag on the porch — a porch she believes burned within 15 minutes after she fled. “If you were on foot in front of that, you would have never escaped,” Filano said. The flames inched to the edge of the highway as Filano drove east on Colorado 14 to Cache La Poudre Middle

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School in Laporte, leaving behind her home of more than 30 years. “I’m upset, but as long as I’m not taking that long dirt nap, I’m OK,” Filano said. • For the Juniper Valley Fire Crew out of Rifle, it looked like things were under control at the Ute Trail fire they were working near Delta — then came word to pack up and head east. Adolph Arellano and the rest of the crew arrived at the Colorado National Guard Armory near Fort Collins on Sunday afternoon still caked in ash and dirt. “We’re coming off a six-hour drive,” Arellano said as they headed into the command center for orders.

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The Denver Post

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Fire rushes crews, fleeing residents

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communications. The site includes the transmitter for KUNC-FM 91.5, off the air since Saturday. The towers relay “all of the public-safety communications in Larimer County,” sheriff’s spokesman John Schulz said. “We don’t want to be left high and dry if that gets taken out,” Schulz said. At 20,000 acres, the High Park fire covered more than 31 square miles. Boulder covers 24 square miles, and Denver 44. An evacuation center set up at Cache La Poudre Middle School in Laporte was moved late Sunday to the Ranch at Interstate 25 and Crossroads Boulevard because of smoke near LaPorte. About 20 evacuees stayed at the middle school Saturday night. Jim Smith, 52, his wife, two children and their three dogs were at the school Sunday. Smith said he has lived in his home on Spring Valley Road for 20 years and that while he has seen six or eight large fires while living there, this is the hottest and fastest-moving. Smith said he and his family evacuated their home before the official evacuation notice was issued at 4 p.m. Saturday after see-

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miles earlier Sunday. And the Ruidoso fire in New Mexico is at 26,000 acres. The High Park fire is burning in thick timber and large stands of beetle-killed trees. Fighting it has been compounded by winds and hot, dry weather. “We have planned for and trained for fires in every neighborhood,” Smith said. “But this fire hit every neighborhood at once. Flames were licking at the units that were doing the evacuations. We have had evacuation crews on the run for almost 24 hours straight.” Firefighters are working in steep, heavily wooded areas as well as meadows. Gov. John Hickenlooper toured the scene Sunday morning. “This is the fire a lot of folks in Larimer County have always worried about,” he said. “We are throwing everything at it that we can.” Four helicopters and two air tankers dropped water and flame retardant as 15 engines were working with firefighters on the ground. There were no plans for containment as firefighters focused on structures and evacuation. “Those folks are doing everything they can, but Mother Nature is running this fire,” Smith said. The fire is slated to receive a Type 1 designation today that will make it eligible for national resources, Christensen said. The Colorado National Guard has two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters ready at the Loveland Airport in Fort Collins for water-bucket drops, said Capt. Darin Overstreet, a Guard spokesman. Overstreet said the National Guard received an executive order from Hickenlooper and the Colorado Division of Emergency Management requesting support with the High Park fire. The cause of the fire had not been determined. In addition to protecting homes and people, the fire crews were focused on protecting a field of communications towers on top of Buckhorn Mountain. If the towers were lost, it would cut off radio communication except for line-of-sight

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TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2012

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2012 Voter Guide: See candidate Q&As, build your own ballot and more. »denverpost.com/politics

HIGH PARK FIRE

Grief, with some relief NATION & WORLD

DEATH, DESTRUCTION: Woman, 62, dies in huge blaze; 100 structures gone

TURNAROUND: Flames appear to be blowing back onto charred ground

SANDUSKY’S TRIAL BEGINS WITH GRAPHIC DETAILS The criminal trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky opens with graphic testimony from the first witness, who said Sandusky pawed him, molested him in locker-room showers and in hotels, and tried to ensure his silence with gifts and trips to bowl games. »13A

Recession set U.S. wealth back 20 years, Fed data say

A helicopter firefighting crew drops water in an area northwest of Horsetooth Reservoir on Monday. Ground crews were aided by five heavy tankers, five single-engine air tankers and at least five helicopters, with more choppers on order. RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

By Ylan Q. Mui The Washington Post

County: Help us reach you

washington» The recent recession wiped out nearly two decades of Americans’ wealth, according to government data released Monday, with middle-class families bearing the brunt of the decline. The Federal Reserve said the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were in 1992. The data represent one of the most detailed looks to date of how the economic downturn altered the landscape of family finance. Over three years, Americans watched the evaporation of progress that took almost a generation to accumulate. The promise of retirement built on the inevitable

Residents in the potential path of the High Park fire were urged Monday to provide as much contact information as possible in case landline and cellphone service in the area is crippled. Larimer County’s emergency telephone-alert system — considered one of the state’s best — has been deployed 21 times for various evacuation calls since the lightning-sparked fire began, said Kimberly Culp, executive director of the Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority. But notifying residents in emergencies is an inexact science, and Larimer County officials are using the latest threat to get more people registered to receive alerts by cellphone, text and e-mail. If the High Park fire knocks out cellphone towers or telephone

WEALTH » 11A

911 » 8A

By Eric Gorski The Denver Post

High Park fire forecast Fire managers expect more resources to arrive today to continue the effort to contain the blaze. The crew is expected to grow to about 600 today. Today’s forecast for Fort Collins: a high of about 80 degrees, with light winds later in the day.

Updates: Latest details are online. »denverpost.com

3rd State rank in acreage of High Park fire (more than 41,140 acres). Only the Hayman fire (137,760 acres) and the Missionary Ridge fire (71,739), both in 2002, were bigger.

By Kieran Nicholson, Monte Whaley and Joey Bunch The Denver Post

fort collins» Monday brought mixed news on the destructive High Park fire: Authorities confirmed their worst fears, that the blaze had claimed a life; estimated that at least 100 structures were damaged or destroyed; and then, late in the day, were heartened that some of the flames appeared to be blowing back onto themselves instead of claiming new ground. The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Linda Steadman, 62, died in the blaze. She lived at 9123 Old Flowers Road, according to Sheriff Justin Smith. “We have a burned-out structure,” Smith said. “The individual would have most likely been within the structure.” Steadman’s family issued a statement late Monday. “Linda Steadman, mother, grandmother, sister and wife, perished in the cabin she loved,” the statement said. “As you can imagine, this is a difficult time for the Steadman fami-

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ly, and they ask that they are allowed time to grieve privately.” The family thanked firefighters and emergency personnel. Smith said Steadman lived alone. She received two evacuation notifications Saturday, the sheriff said, but both calls went to voice mail. A deputy and a firefighter made it to her property but were stoppped by the blaze and a locked gate, Smith said. Conditions today are expected to be warm again — about 80 degrees — and windier, and an additional 200 FIRE » 7A

the denver post B denverpost.com B tuesday, june 12, 2012

NEWS «7A

Smell smoke? Don’t push it State health experts offer advice on how to handle the poor air quality. By Michael Booth The Denver Post

State air officials have tried to make it easy to follow smoke-hazard warnings and pollution levels online. Start at colorado.gov/ airquality. From there, click on “Smoke Outlook,” “Colorado Air Quality Map” or other tabs for more detailed information. For quick updates on Facebook, use the search box and enter “Colorado Air Pollution Division,” then bookmark that page. For tweeted updates on smoke levels or advisories, go to Twitter.com/CDPHEAPCD.

firefighters will be on the lines, bringing the total to 600. The blaze had grown to 41,140 acres by 8 p.m. and was zero percent contained. Earlier in the afternoon, firefighters watched with hope as winds shifted and sections of the blaze turned back on itself northwest of Horsetooth Reservoir. “We are making good progress, and in some cases, the fire has died down and moderated,” Larimer County executive officer Nick Christensen said Monday afternoon at a briefing. At the same time, the northeast corner of the fire, near where the Hewlett fire burned recently, was marching toward the Bonner Peaks subdivision and the large Glacier View neighborhood. “We have helicopters making water drops and additional crews because of concerns we have up there,” Christensen said. There were no pre-evacuation notifications for Glacier View, but fire commanders were planning, just in case. “Residents in that area need to be aware,” he said. Christensen said a U.S. Forest Service investigator had confirmed that the fire began with a lightning strike early Saturday. By Monday evening, it was the third-largest wildfire in Colorado history. “From what I’ve seen, there has been some fire growth, at least on this side,” Christensen said. “The boundaries may have gotten a little bigger, and I don’t want to minimize our concerns in the northeast.” Late in the afternoon, dozens of evacuees and rubberneckers

Fire may reroute Ride Ride the Rockies tour director Chandler Smith said race officials are monitoring the High Park fire in Larimer County and developing a plan that could change the final leg of the six-day ride. Friday’s route is supposed to take cyclists from Estes Park to the finish line at Odell Brewing Co. in Fort Collins. The route includes the roads along Horsetooth Dam and through LaPorte and Bellvue — areas currently in or near the fire zone. “We won’t make any decisions until end of day on Wednesday,” Smith said Monday evening. “But it will most likely entail a revised route. We are still hoping the finish line will be Odell’s.”

gathered on the east side of Horsetooth Reservoir — across the big lake from where white smoke rose from the ridge on the west side. “I’ve been looking at those trees all my life,” said 67-yearold Elaine Hooper. “I guess I’m here for the end. I thought the forest would outlive me.” She was hopeful that the fire had missed her home, the one she and her husband built 20 years ago mostly by themselves. “All we know for sure right now is we lost our trees, so we can just hope for everything else,” she said.

a d Fe

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LIVERMORE

Map area

Denver

High Park burn area as of Monday morning

COLORADO burn area

287 14

3 miles

Old Flowers Rd.

TED’S PLACE

Ri s t anyon R d. C KUNC-FM and public safety transmitter towers

Fire started by a lightning strike early Saturday

LAPORTE Horsetooth Reservoir Taft Hill Rd.

FROM 1A

Find alerts online

FIRE: Moving 20-40 feet per minute

d. 2 ty R

Michael Booth: 303-954-1686, mbooth@denverpost.com or twitter.com/mboothdp

Plumes of smoke rise from the High Park fire Monday. The fire, started by lightning early Saturday, has left one person dead. Eric Lutzens, The Denver Post

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Doctors and air-quality officials have a simple rule to breathe easier during wildfire season: If you can see smoke or smell it, take care. A state air-quality “alert” for smoke rolled up and down the Front Range as a result of the High Park fire west of Fort Collins, and officials warned that heavier billows could extend to the plains overnight Monday. Poudre Valley Hospital officials noted an uptick in emergency-room visits from vulnerable patients feeling the effects of wildfire smoke. Air-quality and medical officials agree on an easy 5-mile standard for the public to follow. Pick a landmark that you know is about 5 miles away; if it is extremely hazy or obscured altogether, then it’s a good day to stay indoors and look for other ways to minimize particles in your lungs. “If it gets so bad in your house that you’re feeling uncomfortable, then you’ve got to move,” said Dick Hahn, respiratoryservices manager at Poudre Valley Hospital, the primary facility in the plume area. State air officials urged people to not be complacent even though the monitoring map on their website Monday showed only the Fort Collins area with an orange warning dot, indicating air quality had moved to the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” level. The map is based on stationary monitors and does not always reflect wider advisories issued by the state, said Christopher Dann, spokesman for the Air Pollution Control Division. The state’s broader advisory Monday said smoke could make air uncomfortable and potentially unhealthy from Colorado Springs to Wyoming and warned of “periods of moderate to locally heavy smoke.” “More important than what we do is how people feel,” Dann said. “Their bodies will tell them anything before we can tell them, what they see, what they smell, how they feel.” Health officials offered the following tips: • The elderly, very young children and anyone with respiratory issues should limit activity when smoke is obvious by smell or sight. Pets, which have small airways, are included in the warnings. • If you feel irritated indoors, run air conditioners that have filters and keep the windows closed. Indoor air filters are good only if they have HEPA filters, “and there aren’t many of those left on the shelves in Fort Collins today,” Hahn said. • Face masks are useful only if they are marked with “N-95,” meaning they filter tiny particulates. The average woodworking or yard mask does not have that protection. • Breathing through a damp cloth can help, but if it’s that bad, consider leaving your neighborhood. • If those with respiratory conditions are not helped by regular medicine or an allowable boost, they should contact an emergency room.

FORT COLLINS 287 The Denver Post

From a few feet away, another evacuee, Tina Hosch, 32, added: “I keep wondering if any of the smoke is my stuff.” Most of the burned structures appeared to have been in Rist Canyon, but Christensen cautioned that the tally was “based on anecdotal observation. The final count could be lower or higher.” He said structures also had been lost in Poudre Canyon but could offer no specifics. Roughly 400 firefighters were battling the blaze Monday, and that number should reach at least 600 today. Christensen said the fire burned within a few feet of a field of communications towers on top of Buckhorn Mountain, but it did not appear to have damaged the equipment used to manage public-safety transmissions for Larimer County. “The hope for containment today is tenuous — totally de-

pendent on the weather,” Bill Hahnenberg, the federal official who took over management of the fire Monday, said earlier in the day. “We may be at zero percent tonight.” Firefighters were hoping that cooler weather, calmer winds and higher humidity would help, Christensen said. The fire was moving at 20 to 40 feet per minute — a fast pace for fires, Christensen said. Flame heights have been reported at 15 to 20 feet, with reports of crowning up to 300 feet. Firefighters were aided by additional aircraft, including five heavy tankers, five singleengine air tankers and at least five helicopters, with more choppers on order. Hahnenberg, the Type-One Incident Management Team commander, said more firefighters were on the way. “We are here to do whatever

we can to limit the effects of the fire,” Hahnenberg said. Of the number of firefighters, he said, “We are close to having what we need. We expect to grow over the next couple of days.” Areas where homes or structures have been burned include Rist Canyon, Paradise Park, Poudre Canyon, Poudre Park and Stove Prairie — along Old Flowers Road. Firefighters and emergency personnel concentrated Monday on protecting lives and property. Today, with more equipment and more firefighters available, authorities were planning to make strides in fire suppression. Investigators will be focusing on the burned structure belonging to Steadman, Smith said. Lou DeAngelis, 47, a sculptor, said he evacuated his dream home in Rist Canyon on Saturday night. DeAngelis had been trying to find out the status of his home, but so far he hadn’t been able to get any specific information on his address. “To me, it’s very frustrating. We have the technology to see if a man is living in a cave in Afghanistan, but you can’t tell me if my home is intact,” he said. “It’s difficult to know what to do now. They need to give people accurate information. I just want a simple answer.” DeAngelis wanted to be allowed back into the fire zone so he could view his home — or what was left of it. “If I choose to go up there,” he said, “that’s my choice as a life form on this planet.” Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com

High Park fire online Interactive maps: Examine updated maps of the fire zone, one identifying the smallest roads »denverpost.com/extras

Live blog: Get live updates from people on the scene of the fire »denverpost.com Slide show: View more images taken by Denver Post staffers and others submitted by readers »denverpost.com/mediacenter

Health: Learn more about Colorado’s air quality in the wake of the fire »blogs.denverpost.com/health History: Examine a list of the largest wildfires in Colorado history, by acres burned »blogs.denverpost.com/library Pat and Lori Tovaas hug upon discovering that their trailer in Rist Canyon had not been destroyed in the High Park fire. The couple, using binoculars, were able to see their residence Monday. The fire had damaged or destroyed at least 100 structures. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

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wires, Culp said, text messages still could get through. “If we lose infrastructure, it is critical to have another path to reach our citizens,” she said. “Our priority right now is to make sure everyone that wants or needs to get registered in our system is able to do so.” In late March, an undetermined number of residents threatened by the Lower North Fork fire in Jefferson County failed to receive evacuation warnings — including a 51-yearold woman who was killed — because of a problem mapping some addresses in the system. Culp said Larimer County officials are monitoring their system to make sure it is performing correctly. Robin Flannery, whose home is on Rist Canyon Road, where several homes are feared destroyed, said she was notified Saturday night. “They called twice,” she said. “The first call was a warning. Then two hours later we got a second call, and right then the sheriff was on our door.” Flannery’s 21-year-old daughter, Nicole, said she headed home as soon as she heard from her mom that they were on evacuation notice. “I was on my way home from work and was stopped by the Forest Service and told about the area being evacuated,” Nicole Flannery said. Culp said the Larimer County Emergency Telephone Authority, or LETA, is staffing its office to manually enter new people into the system hourly in case residents are unable to register online. LETA takes several steps to improve accuracy in its system, including using its own mapping system to match numbers and addresses instead of leaving it to an outside firm or using commercial maps. The system is deployed 12 times a month on average, and everyone authorized to use it must run a test at least once a month. More than 40,000 people in Larimer County — an unusually high number — have signed up to receive alerts by cell, text, e-mail and fax. Still, increasing reliance on cellphones, the decline of land lines and the county’s large number of students suggests that between 20 percent and 30 percent of the population is not in the system, Culp said. Larimer County residents can register to receive alerts at www.leta911.org.

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loveland» Ron Haines stepped inside a small enclosure just outside of Thomas M. McKee Community Center in Larimer County and set down a large blue bucket for an unusual set of evacuees in the shadow of the raging High Park fire. “Just wanted to give these guys some fresh water,” Haines said, gently patting one of his black alpacas. Ron and his wife, Denise, rushed to bring their herd of 143 alpacas from their ranch outside Poudre Canyon to a makeshift animal shelter as soon as they received an evacuation notice early Saturday morning, while they were attending a convention in Estes Park. “We left the hotel and headed down,” Ron Haines said. “We called a bunch of our friends on the way, and they met up with us with nine trailers to help move all” the alpacas. Sheriff’s officials said the center already has seen 250 animals. The couple knew their house was still standing Monday af-

the winds go north, all of us in Glacier are in trouble.” Watts and her husband have lived in their home for two years and said they are prepared for an evacuation, mostly because of the constantly changing directions and conditions of the fire. “I’ve been through two fires, but this one really got to me,” Watts said. “It’s the first time I’ve been really fearful.”

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By Sara Simmons The Denver Post

ternoon, thanks to a relative’s email with a picture of firefighters battling flames in their front yard. Many evacuees at the center said not knowing their homes’ status has been the most difficult part of the evacuation. “All night until 5 a.m. this morning, we kept checking the map inside” showing the fire’s status, said Robin Flannery, whose home is on Rist Canyon Road. Flannery and her daughter, Nicole, evacuated Saturday night, taking a few clothes, toiletries, electronics and their dogs with them. They have lived in their home for only eight months and finished paying the deposit Friday. Monday morning, they were notified that their home was still standing. “It almost seems unfair that we were able to keep our home, but I’m so grateful,” Nicole Flannery said. Deb Watts, a Glacier resident, volunteered at the center Monday. She said although her neighborhood hasn’t received an official evacuation notice, she loaded her car full of belongings because she could see smoke close to her home. “It’s probably 8 or 9 miles from my home,” Watts said. “Sheriff (Justin) Smith said if

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HIGH PARK FIRE | BARRIERS ESTABLISHED ON TWO FRONTS

Securing an upper hand How it compares

HAYMAN FIRE June 8-11, 2002

After burning for four days, the High Park fire is the third-largest wildfire recorded in Colorado history. The 2002 Hayman fire, the state’s largest wildfire, which charred 137,760 acres, had consumed twice as many acres after four days.

87,000 ACRES

STILL UNCONTROLLED: Fire creeps closer to vast area with few homes but huge beetle-killed forests.

Zero percent containment

HIGH PARK FIRE June 9-12, 2012

43,472 ACRES 10 percent containment

HEAVY TOLL: More than 100 structures destroyed as more resources arrive to defend lives and property. By Tom McGhee The Denver Post

larimer county» Fire crews made good progress corralling the massive High Park fire Tuesday, carving out barriers on the northeast and southeast edges, but the blaze remained active. And people pushed from their homes within its boundaries remained very anxious. “I know the fire has burned through my property; I know that for a fact,” said John Brewer, who was away when the call to evacuate reached his wife, Georganne. “I heard rumors that my neighbor’s house is gone.” At a meeting for evacuated residents Tuesday morning, he hoped to learn the fate of his home on Davis Ranch Road, but officials could not help him. “It’s terrible not to know,” he said. “I love the place and plan on going back. I don’t care if the house is gone; I plan on living on that property.” Some residents evacuated from the southern tip of Horsetooth Reservoir were allowed to return home Tuesday afternoon. Some pre-evacuation orders for subdivisions to the north were canceled. HIGH PARK » 8A

R EIN IN G IN THE B EA ST

Rebecca DeMott packs her wedding dress while her parents’ home in Glacier View Meadows was under pre-evacuation notice as the High Park fire burned west of Fort Collins on Tuesday. Firefighters say they made progress fighting the blaze Tuesday, but residents are still on edge, as the fire has burned more than 40,000 acres, encompassing more than 65 square miles. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

Attack plan leans on 1910 technique, new technologies By Jeremy P. Meyer The Denver Post

P U B L I SHE RS HO LD ING BACK

Denver library’s struggles speak volumes about finding e-books for loan to patrons By Ryan Parker The Denver Post

The written word is going digital, right? Not so fast, say big publishers, who limit the number of times an e-book can be loaned, offer them at inflated prices or refuse outright to sell electronic copies to public libraries. Macmillan, Penguin Books, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster and the Hachette Book Group refuse to sell e-books to libraries. Others, including Random House and HarperCollins, will sell but

with limited “loans” or charging more than three times retail price, Denver Public Library spokeswoman Jen Morris said. “Everyone is getting fed up,” she said. Despite the struggle to obtain electronic copies, the number of e-book checkouts at DPL has increased more than 300 percent over the past five years. Digital audiobooks also are in higher demand. Last year at DPL, there were 271,827 checkouts of e-books and digital audiobooks, including

DENVER & THE WEST

DAUGHTER: MOM BEGAN SHAKING BEFORE CRASH The 12-year-old daughter of Monica Chavez, the woman accused of killing five people in a Thornton car accident last year, told a jury that her mom started to shake just before her SUV sped up. »4A

laporte» Firefighters attacking the complex High Park fire are using a century-old battle plan, bolstered by modern-day technologies. Using picks and axes, wildland teams are methodically scratching barriers into the dirt and lighting backfires, while helicopters aided by satellite imagery drop water, and tankers douse areas with chemical retardant. They’re trying to pin down the monster at an anchor point, building a line to flank in the beast and pinch off its head for total containment. “If you go out and throw people all around it, then it’s wasted effort,” said David Liebersbach, a former Type 1 incident commander and past director of Alaska’s emergency services. “You find a point where you can anchor in. You work out from that in a continuous line so you don’t

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wednesday, june 13, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

The High Park fire burns on Stove Prairie Road and Colorado 14 in Poudre Canyon on Tuesday, as seen from Glacier View Meadows west of Fort Collins. Evacuees can find out whether their homes were scorched or spared at a 3 p.m. meeting today at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

HIGH PARK: Progress depends on weather «

FROM 1A

New orders were issued in the northwest, in areas where roads might be closed as the more-than-43,000acre blaze edges toward vast wilderness areas with few homes and a forest where beetles have killed 70 percent of the trees. Firefighters aren’t focused there now, Type 1 incident team spokesman Steve Segin said, because of the extra danger that beetle-killed trees create for crews.

One step at a time “We haven’t turned the corner on this, but we have made progress,” Segin said. “Once you start building lines, you just start connecting the dots. Dot to dot to dot.” By today, Segin estimates the firefighter count will reach 680 and 100 engines will be out protecting homes and other structures. Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said crews will begin structure assessment today. Evacuees can find out whether their homes were burned or spared at a 3 p.m. meeting today at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland. By Tuesday night, about 10 percent of the fire was considered contained. Firefighters also contained a 120-acre fire on the north side of Colorado 14. “I breathed a sigh of relief today when I saw the progress these crews made,” Smith said.

Heavy equipment High Park fire evacuee Jim Conklin brushes his teeth in the bathroom at the Red Cross shelter at The Ranch in Loveland on Tuesday. Some residents evacuated from the southern tip of Horsetooth Reservoir were allowed to return home Tuesday afternoon. Some pre-evacuation orders for subdivisions to the north were canceled. But new evacuation orders were issued in the northwest. RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

Staff writers Jeremy P. Meyer, Monte Whaley, Kieran Nicholson and Tegan Hanlon contributed to this report.

LIVERMORE Lakes Rd. er th a d Fe Hewlett fire burn area

»denverpost.com

COLORADO

Containment line

Photos. Do you have High Park fire

images? Send them to The Post. Plus view updated images of the High Park fire.

3 miles 14

TED’S PLACE

»denverpost.com/extras Ri s t anyon R d. C KUNC-FM and public safety transmitter towers

Fire started by a lightning strike early Saturday

LAPORTE

Containment line in progress

287

FORT COLLINS

WELD COUNTY

Old Flowers Rd.

287

Taft Hill Rd.

High Park fire, as well as images, interactive maps and related Colorado wildfire coverage.

Denver

High Park burn area as of Tuesday

Developments. Updates on the

Map area

LARIMER COUNTY

resident who has tried to protect property by doing controlled burns around it. More than 100 structures have been burned in areas including Rist Canyon, Paradise Park, Poudre Canyon, Poudre Park and Stove Prairie — along Old Flowers Road. Poudre Fire Authority Chief Tom DeMint said there are people fighting the blaze who have lost their own homes but remain on the fire lines. Some of them lost their homes as they protected the Stove Prairie School on Old Flowers Road, near where 62-yearold Linda Steadman died in her home Saturday. “We are running on fumes,” DeMint said, “but we are out there.”

27 Rd. nty Cou

Tuesday, there were five heavy air tankers, five SEATs (single-engine air tankers), four Type 1 heavy helitankers, three Type 2 helicopters, four Type 3 helicopters and three Black Hawk helicopters. Approximately 26 engines were on the scene. Fire officials expect to have as many as 800 firefighters on the ground later this week, said Bill Hahnenberg, the U.S. Forest Service Type 1 Incident Management Team commander. Their progress will depend on the weather. The National Weather Service forecast a high today near 90, with winds of 6 to 9 mph out of the south and southeast. “Any day Mother Nature can help is a good day,” Segin said. About 50 National Guard military police have been activated to monitor checkpoints and control access. They are being helped by Colorado State University and Fort Collins police and the Colorado State Patrol. Larimer County officials said there are people who have refused to evacuate Poudre Canyon and at least one

The Denver Post

T H E FAC ES O F H IG H PARK

Public library helps evacuees cope with stress of fire Poudre River staff provide games and toys to keep kids’ mind off the blaze and help parents relax. By Sarah Simmons The Denver Post

loveland» As anxious adults checked the latest fire maps, filed insurance claims and sought information on lost pets, children displaced by the massive High Park fire found some solace. The Poudre River Public Library District has set up a table in a corner of the Thomas M. McKee Community Center in Larimer County, where evac-

uees are taking shelter, where kids can play with toys, read, watch cartoons and put puzzles together. There also are Internet-connected laptops available for contacting family. Irene Romsa, the library district’s outreach services manager, said library staff are there from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., helping to support parents who need a break and provide comfort to kids who live in the library district. “All of the affected area is within our

district,” Romsa said. “We wanted to do something. We were really antsy because it was our community being affected.” Julia Muirhead sat and watched her twin 6-year-old girls, Carmella and Cayla, hula-hoop and play card games while she ate lunch. Muirhead and her husband were in the process of purchasing a home in Rist Canyon, where her husband’s parents live, when the fire began. “I can answer the phone and take care of what I need to while they play,” she said. Muirhead said she and her husband

didn’t tell their daughters the details of what was happening during the evacuation in an effort to keep things calm. It wasn’t until the girls saw a television news segment about the fire that they started asking why they couldn’t go back to their grandparents’ house. “They spent half their lives up there,” Muirhead said. “They have bedrooms and a yard full of toys for them. This whole thing is pretty sad.” The library district is looking to use its set-up as a model for other districts that experience disaster by possibly holding workshops with emergency

responders that will focus on children’s needs. Romsa said the district plans on maintaining a presence as a resource for evacuees in the shelter by leaving the toys and books, but will likely slowly start to phase out the staff. In the meantime, she said they feel happy to help out. “While they’re playing, they can forget everything,” Romsa said. “For just that little bit, they can forget.” Sarah Simmons: 303-954-1210 or ssimmons@denverpost.com

10A» NEWS

wednesday, june 13, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

FIRE: Full

control before fall unlikely «

Air-quality alert in effect today; keep up online The state Air Pollution Control Division has extended its Action Day Alert health advisory through 4 p.m. today for the Front Range from El Paso County north to Larimer and Weld counties, including the Denver-

Boulder area, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Greeley. To keep up with the advisories, follow smoke-hazard warnings and pollution levels online. Start at colorado.gov/airquality. From there, click on

“Smoke Outlook,” “Colorado Air Quality Map” or other tabs for more detailed information. For quick updates on Facebook, use the search box and enter “Colorado Air Pollution Division,” then bookmark that page. For tweeted updates on smoke levels or advisories, go to Twitter.com/CDPHEAPCD.

FROM 1A

have a chance of blowing out.” But this fire, with its evershifting boundaries and multiple heads, isn’t a textbook case. “This fire, … we got a mess. It’s so doggone big,” said Bill Hahnenberg, the Type 1 incident commander leading the battle against the High Park fire, explaining his attack on the blaze, which seems to be spreading in every direction in tinder-dry forest. Crews are trying to establish several anchor points, including where lightning ignited the fire Saturday morning. The idea is to use natural barriers such as roads, creeks or cliffs so the squirrelly fire can’t hook around and trap firefighters as they move forward, he said. The technique dates to the Big Burn, a 1910 blaze that chewed through 3 million acres in Washington, Idaho and Montana. While lines are being carved in the dirt, other crews are spending time defending structures, lighting back burns and fighting the blaze with engines. About 100,000 feet of fire hose is being used on this blaze, Gov. John Hickenlooper said Tuesday at a news briefing after touring the fire. Hickenlooper later declared the High Park fire a disaster and authorized up to $20 million to fight it. As of Tuesday afternoon, about $3 million had been spent. “There is no doubt we have the top firefighters in the country working on this fire,” he said after the tour. During an afternoon briefing, officials said the more than 43,000-acre fire was in the range of 10 percent contained. Still, Hahnenberg said the blaze may not be totally under control — meaning all hot spots extinguished — until the fall. “Containment is when we are reasonably sure that we have good fire line constructed and heavy-burning fuels mopped up or pulled away from the line 100 feet,” he said. “We know that is a good section of line down to the mineral soil, where the fire can’t creep across.” Sometimes lines are burnedout areas, hand-built lines or natural barriers such as roads or rivers. The fire won’t be considered controlled until crews are “very confident” all the heat on the line is gone and cannot be detected by feeling the ground with a hand. “That comes later,” Hahnenberg said. “Our goal is 100 percent containment,” he said. “The likelihood of control before fall is slim.” Hahnenberg said crews may never get containment of the western flank of the fire, which is in remote Forest Service land with few structures and vast stands of beetle-killed timber. “We may work with it as it goes into that more remote country,” he said. Hahnenberg said his greatest concern over the next few days is if another red-flag warning day occurs — where winds and hot temperatures combine to blow up the fire, which already is burning in parched vegetation. “This fire could gain significant additional acreage,” he said, adding that he isn’t concerned whether the fire heads west, but any other direction would be in the direction of homes.

Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com

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THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2012

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SYRI A N CO NF LIC T

U.S. “spin” alleged on Russian arms claim O∞cial: Clinton’s accusation aims to increase pressure By The New York Times

HIGH PARK FIRE | HOMESICK ABOUT HOMES

Evacuees begin to learn what’s left FIRE STATUS | 46,820 acres burned; blaze still only 10 percent contained

FORECAST | Slight chance of thunderstorms, with gusty winds

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Russia on Tuesday of shipping attack helicopters to Syria that would “escalate the conflict quite dramatically,” it was the Obama administration’s sharpest criticism yet of Russia’s support for the Syrian government. What Clinton did not say, however, was whether the aircraft were new shipments or, as U.S. officials say is more likely, helicopters that Syria had sent to Russia a few months ago for routine repairs and refurbishing, and which were now scheduled to be returned. “She put a little spin on it to put the Russians in a difficult position,” said one senior Defense Department official. Clinton’s claim about the helicopters, administration officials said, is part of a calculated effort to raise the pressure on Russia to abandon Syrian President Bashar Assad, its main ally in the Middle East. Russia has so far stuck by Assad’s government, worried that if he were ousted, Moscow would lose its influence in the region. In response to Clinton’s allegations, SYRIA » 10A

Don Hunter, left, rides alongside Lynnie Long, with Tracy Cookman sitting behind her, through Brewster Farm outside Bellvue on Wednesday. The area was evacuated in a predawn rush at 4 a.m. Sunday as the High Park fire raced through. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

SPORTS

INFOR ASHOCK

The athletes were more celebratory than competitive at last weekend’s Tough Mudder event. They shaved mohawks onto their heads, they wore tiny outfits or elaborate costumes. “You’re in too deep now to back out, don’t you think?” said a man to his buddy, who was sporting only a jock strap and seemed worried about the course’s two electrified obstacles. »1B

NATION & WORLD Good germs. Researchers have taken a long look at the body’s huge variety of beneficial bacteria, which may play a key role in health. »15A

By Joey Bunch and Monte Whaley The Denver Post

ome people learned Wednesday afternoon that their homes had been consumed by the ferocious High Park fire. But others may wait for days, as structure-assessment teams move through neighborhoods, getting an accurate inventory of which of the 118 structures burned in the 46,820-acre blaze were houses, Larimer County Sheriff’s Office executive officer Nick Christensen said. “It’s a waiting game now,” Poudre Park resiSome in Bellvue and the Shoreline neighbordent Tammy Milner said after an afternoon hood learned they could return to their homes. meeting of about 2,000 people who were broken Residents of Bonner Peak, Bonner Springs into groups and advised whether they could reRanch, the Missile Silo Road area, and Mill and turn home. FIRE » 9A

Fire updates. Find the latest news on the High Park fire, as well as Denver Post and reader-submitted images, interactive maps and related Colorado wildfire coverage. »denverpost.com

MAKING CONNECTIONS Psychiatrists and patients see success — and ﬂexibility — in video linkups By Michael Booth and Kevin Simpson The Denver Post

frisco» Psychiatrist Robert Chalfant Jr. happily lists the reasons he spends 70 percent of his patient time visiting by video: His northwestern Colorado practice covers an area the size of West Virginia, with the population density of New Mexico. The younger generation finds Skype-style psychiatry “second nature.” Colorado West mental health doesn’t have to pay him $105 an hour “to be behind a windshield,” driving to distant clinics. And his no-show rates, from blizzards or car breakdowns, are way below the national average. “I was worried I’d miss something, but that’s really not been a problem,” said Chalfant, who sees patients CONNECTING » 10A

Colorado West psychiatrist Robert Chalfant Jr., in his Frisco office, visits with Steamboat Springs office administrator Dana Morton. The mental-health provider’s video reach stretches across 10 counties, with 20 percent of its 14,000 patients now using the technology. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

the denver post B denverpost.com B thursday, june 14, 2012

NEWS «9A

A M AT E U R R A D I O O P E R ATO R S F I L L I N G A P S

“My guys don’t start before I do, and they don’t finish after I do.” By Tegan Hanlon The Denver Post

A 5:15 a.m. phone call Sunday asked amateur radio operator Randy Long to find more volunteers to aid communication in the High Park fire zone — and warned him to evacuate his home. Long, an Amateur Radio Emergency Service coordinator for Larimer and Weld counties, fled his house southeast of Buckhorn Mountain and started rallying more licensed ham operators to work the fire. Since Saturday, he has been managing operators staffing eight-hour shifts around the clock. They’re doing such things as setting up portable radio repeaters and relaying messages between the fire lines and command posts. About 40 operators have volunteered. “My guys don’t start before I do, and they don’t finish after I do,” said Long, 55, who still doesn’t know whether his home burned in the 46,600-acre blaze. The American Radio Relay League — the national association for amateur radio — organized ARES in 1935 to serve agencies during times of disaster. More than 700 people volunteer as ham operators across 28 districts in Colorado. “We’re kind of the unsung heroes,” said Robert Wareham, Colorado section emergency coordinator. Wareham, 59, works full time as a

John Wells of Amateur Radio Emergency Service District 10 mans his station at the High Park fire incident command post in the National Guard Armory in Fort Collins on Wednesday. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post lawyer in Highlands Ranch and logs an additional 10 to 20 hours a week with ARES. Long, Wareham and a handful of ARES volunteers stood at the National Guard Armory in Fort Collins on Monday, radios in hand or clipped to belts. Clouds of smoke billowed overhead, and tents dotted the grassy field where

firefighters slept between shifts. They were called to service at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, as the High Park fire encircled Buckhorn and Horsetooth mountains, where a critical hub of Larimer County public-safety communications towers stand. “Those are the kind of things we train for day in and day out,” Wareham said.

As part of their hobby, amateur radio operators have set up about 50 mountaintop repeaters around northern Colorado. Why? “Well, why do people climb rocks? Because they’re there. Why do we build stuff? Because we can,” Wareham said. If the communication towers went down, ARES operators could send the radio signals to one of their repeaters or set up a portable repeater. Many times, emergency officials don’t know how to fix the dropped signals — or don’t have time. “We just want to keep the people in this county safe,” said Long, who works as a private investigator. Loveland Community Safety Division Chief Merlin Green said it’s hard to say “just how valuable” the ham operators are to government agencies. “We have some of the most robust, redundant communication capabilities,” Green said. “It’s because of their expertise.”

“It’s a hobby for us” The ARES volunteers contribute most of their own equipment when on scene. ARES regional emergency coordinator Rob Strieby has worked with ham

radios for 20 years. As a child, he built radio kits. He still tinkers with vintage radios. Strieby, of Loveland, said his radio collection ranges from “World War II transmitters to modern digital equipment.” Strieby has plenty of company in radio collecting — some ARES members tout owning upward of 25 devices. Amateur radio operators aren’t transfixed only by vintage devices. In Wareham’s black truck, his laptop sits on a metal stand mapping the car’s location, a radio is strapped to the dashboard, and a bag of about six types of radios rests in the back, straddled by two wireless routers. “You never know when the terrorist attack will come or when the natural disaster will hit or when the forest fire will catch fire,” said Wareham, who is better known by his radio call sign “N0ESQ.” Wareham’s call sign matches his license plate, and the “esq” fits in nicely with his lawyer career path. “It’s a hobby for us,” Wareham said. “But it’s also a way we give back to the community.” Tegan Hanlon: 303-954-1729 or thanlon@denverpost.com

FIRE:

Western edge still a concern

FROM 1A

High Park firefighters, from left, Tiras Roach, Jeff Wegert and Mark Schmidt of the Westminster Fire Department watch the Glacier View subdivision Wednesday after Larimer County issued a pre-evacuation order for the area. More than 1,000 personnel are fighting the fire. RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post kes Rd. LIVERMORE r La he t a d Fe Hewlett fire burn area

Map area

Denver

High Park burn area as of Wednesday

287

COLORADO

Containment line

N 3 miles

TED’S PLACE

Taft Hill Rd. Tuesday: 43,433 acres Wednesday: 46,600 acres

Developments. Find updates on the High Park fire, as well as images, interactive maps and related Colorado wildfire coverage. »denverpost.com Photos. Do you have High Park fire images? Send them to The Denver Post. Plus view updated images of the High Park fire. »denverpost.com/extras

LAPORTE

Containment line in progress

287

FORT COLLINS

LARIMER COUNTY

Ri s t anyon R d. C

WELD COUNTY

Old Flowers Rd.

back said he learned his home had been spared by the flames that consumed as many as 100 structures Saturday, the first day of the fire. “But that’s all that’s left, it sounds like,” he said after the resident meeting. “I told myself coming here that at this point all any of us can do is be thankful and pray for the firefighters to get out OK.” Steve Babcoke, 70, figures he may well be filing an insurance claim on the Stove Prairie Junction house he’s lived in since 1974. He left for the evacuation center Saturday evening with his dog and said it’s the longest he’s ever been evacuated. “It’s a bit like waiting to see if you’ve got cancer,” he said of waiting to hear the fate of his home. He was also evacuated during the Crystal fire in 2011 and the Bobcat fire in 2000. He recalls ashes falling on his home during the Bobcat fire before a freak summer snowstorm hit. “If you don’t have a sense of humor for these things,” Babcoke said, “you’re not going to make it.”

d. 2 ty R

About 70 percent of the fire zone is private land and 30 percent is nationalforest land. The fire started Saturday with a lightning strike. Officials say 62-year-old Linda Steadman died when the fire burned her cabin at 9123 Old Flowers Road. Firefighters have used a heavy aerial assault with five heavy tankers, five smaller airplanes and 14 helicopters, among other craft, to pound away at hot spots. “It did have a positive effect on our effort to contain the fire and save structures,” incident commander Bill Hahnenberg said Wednesday. He said conditions in the northwest quadrant of the fire were difficult for firefighters because of the steep terrain and heavy fuels. Firefighters worked in the Lawrence Creek, Buckhorn Road and Stove Prairie Road areas Wednesday. “We have a lot of work to do there,” Hahnenberg said. As firefighters work, displaced residents wait for news about their homes. Rist Canyon resident Jerry Holsen-

n Cou

Soldier canyons may be able to go home today. Those who lost their homes were escorted out the back door of the Budweiser Events Center at the Larimer County Fairgrounds. Don Hunter and Lynnie Long assessed the damage in their neighborhood west of Bellvue on horseback at sunset Wednesday. Hunter rode his beloved 20-year-old white mare, Princess, who was evacuated in a predawn rush as the blaze raced across the Brewster Farm next door at 4 a.m. Sunday. “She ran into the trailer, and she hasn’t been trailered in two years,” Long said as they rode through the charred pasture. Hunter was out of town when the fire began. He had recently euthanized Princess’ pasture mate because of cancer. “To lose her too …,” he said, not finishing the sentence. Ian Metcalf, 26, was shocked to see that the fire had burned within a few feet of the Bellvue home where he has lived his whole life. “I never thought it’d burn down this far.” He too fled at 4 a.m. Sunday, but his father dug in. “He said he’d never seen so many deer and rabbits come across the property in his whole life,” Metcalf said. The fire grew little Wednesday. It remains about 10 percent contained. Christensen said progress has been made containing the fire on the northern and eastern edges. Firefighters are having trouble “connecting the dots” of the containment perimeter on the southern edge, and beetle-killed trees continue to be a worry on the western edge. Fire managers may try to stop the westward progress of the fire with a burnout 3 to 5 miles from the west flank, a heavily timbered area where about 70 percent of the trees are beetle-killed. This led the county to issue a preevacuation order to homes in the large Glacier View subdivision. Christensen said residents should be ready to move. He also said there will be heavy smoke and flames in the area if a backburn is lit. More than 1,000 personnel are fighting the fire and have begun to work 24 hours a day. The High Park fire is the third-largest in recorded Colorado history.

The Denver Post

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HIGH PARK FIRE | NATION’S TANKER FLEET OLD AND DEPLETED

CLOSE TO EMPTY

One of the three heavy air tankers used last week to combat the High Park fire drops slurry near a house on a ridgeline. The planes were built at least 50 years ago. Eric Lutzens, The Denver Post By Jeremy P. Meyer The Denver Post

FAT H ER ’S DAY

Only nine heavy air tankers remain in the U.S. Forest Service’s fleet to battle a wildfire season expected to last through the fall, worrying critics who fear the lack of resources has left forests vulnerable. A decade ago, the fleet numbered 44.

Phil Gallegos, right, 66, and his dad, Jose, 86, sit at home last week. Jose moved in with Phil and his wife, Claudia, last year. Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post

Time reverses roles

By Kevin Simpson The Denver Post

northglenn» Phil Gallegos fixed the salmon egg to the upper hook and a live worm to the lower hook and held them close to his father’s face. “Give it your spit,” Phil said. Jose Gallegos summoned a soft, airy pah-tooey — enough for luck, the way he had taught Phil and his siblings decades ago on the lakes near their home in Monte Vista. Now, Phil rocked back, sent the bait arcing toward the water and handed the

Eight of the remaining planes, including three flying over the High Park fire in Larimer County, were built at least 50 years ago to serve as military planes patrolling the ocean. Despite the concerns, officials with the Forest Service believe they have adequate aerial resources, even as they scramble to bring newer planes on line by late summer. “We are confident that we can mobilize the air support that we need when the threat arises,” said Forest Service spokeswoman Jennifer Jones.

Others are not so sure, saying the aging and depleted fleet is an example of government neglect that could have disastrous results — the fire season in the Western U.S. has only just begun. “I am extremely concerned,” said Jim Hall, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board and head of a blue-ribbon panel in 2002 that issued a list of recommendations for the Forest Service to improve its fleet. “It’s been 10 years, and precious little has been done,” Hall said. “We are going FLEET » 20A

rod to his dad. For an instant, four hands guided the thin filament into the still pool of the lake, into the still pool of memory. Fishing has bound them across the years, from the old days when Jose would roust his kids from bed before dawn each weekend to these days, when Phil guides his dad to a seat by a small suburban lake where they perform old, familiar rituals. Time and infirmity have transformed their roles, so that Phil, 66, has become caretaker to his 86-year-old father — an

Record 181 homes destroyed

FATHER » 14A

DAMAGE » 21A

By Jordan Steffen and Kirk Mitchell The Denver Post

larimer county» The High Park fire is already the most destructive wildfire in recorded Colorado history, but federal fire officials worry that even more homes could be lost to its flames over the next few weeks. The fire, sparked by lightning June 9,

has charred more than 85 square miles west of Fort Collins and destroyed at least 181 homes, Larimer County Sheriff’s executive officer Nick Christensen said Saturday. “There has been a great community effort in response to this fire,” he said. “The loss we are dealing with will also be a community effort.”

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SCOPE OF THE FIRE Slurry worries. The fire retardant dropped on hot spots could be harmful to waterways. »21A

Fire research. Scientists take a look at how wildfires can change weather in the area. »1B

Stay updated. Get the latest all day on efforts to fight the High Park fire. »denverpost.com

20A» NEWS

sunday, june 17, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

Air support Air tankers and helicopters are coordinated to drop fire retardant and water around structures in the fire’s path and over hot spots, giving ground crews a better chance of containing a wildland fire. With the High Park fire blazing across more than 55,050 acres, as many as 20 planes and helicopters from the Forest Service’s fleet of contracted aircraft are currently assisting the firefight west of Fort Collins. AI R TA NKE RS

Type

H EL I C O P TER S

Heavy

Single engine

(including P2V, CV 580) Speed Capacity

Type I

Type II and Type III

Military

(including Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane)

(including Bell 206B JetRanger, Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama)

UH-60 Blackhawk

200 - 340 mph

100 - 200 mph

91 - 140 mph

115 - 161 mph

183 mph

2,000 - 2,800 gallons

125 - 800 gallons

700 - 3,000 gallons

120 - 680 gallons per bucket

780 gallons per bucket

There are only nine heavy air tankers contracted for exclusive use in the country. Eight of them are more than 50 years old.

Five single-engine air tankers are in the rotation.

The tanks have been specially modified for firefighting and can be filled in less than 1 minute through a draft hose.

These helicopters tend to be smaller and have the ability to take off and land in small spaces. The Lama was built specifically for highaltitude work.

The National Guard temporarily loaned two Blackhawks to help with transportation needs and bucket drops.

Sources: U.S. Forest Service; Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center; CAL FIRE Air Program

Danielle Kees, The Denver Post

FLEET: Officials satisfied with resources on High Park fire

FROM 1A

to see one of the major cities in the West go up in fire because of this inaction.” Federal officials say they are aware of the problem and have begun a program to modernize the fleet with seven large air tankers over the next two years — an effort highlighted Wednesday when President Barack Obama signed a bill to speed up the contracting process and add three more tankers by mid-August. The Forest Service, which doesn’t own any of its firefighting aircraft, contracts with private companies. Obama included $24 million to contract for more planes in the 2013 budget, and four companies are under contract to provide next-generation aircraft that will carry at least 2,400 gallons of fire-suppressing retardant and, when fully loaded, have cruise speeds of at least 300 knots (340 mph). Critics argue that the effort is too little — and fear it may be too late. “It’s nice, but this problem isn’t fixed with a stroke of the pen,” said Tony Kern, a former bomber pilot who headed the Forest Service’s aviation program until 2004 and now owns a training and consulting firm in Colorado Springs. “You need to have the airplanes available now.” Heavy air tankers are not a panacea for fighting fires. They don’t extinguish blazes, but they can be used to strategically lay retardant on a fire line to suppress flames and slow the spread of a fire until ground crews arrive. Tankers are most effective in the initial stages of fighting a wildland fire, able to keep small fires from growing large. Studies have shown that one or two tankers can be as effective as eight large helicopter tankers in the initial attack. In the past, a goal was to have tankers in strategic areas so that they could get to a newly reported fire within 20 to 30 minutes. That is increasingly hard to do with fewer aircraft, said Bill Gabbert, a former fire manager who now writes a wildland firefighting blog. As the numbers of heavy air tankers have declined from 44 in 2002 to only

nine under contract today, the Forest Service’s success at catching fires early also has fallen. A 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General estimated that 150 fires escaped initial attack in 2007 alone, costing the federal government up to $450 million more than it would have spent if the fires were stopped in their earliest stages. It’s impossible to know whether the High Park fire could have been stalled in its early stages on June 9 when the lightning-caused fire blew up. First signs of the fire were called in to dispatchers about 6 a.m. A smaller single-engine air tanker, which can carry about 800 gallons of retardant, was over the fire by 9 a.m. A heavy air tanker sent from Grand Junction was on the fire by noon, according to Steve Segin, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. Windy, dry and hot conditions that day blew the fire out of control.

Newest plane is 51 years old Officials say they are satisfied with the aerial resources attacking the fire, which include five heavy air tankers stationed at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield — two CV-580s from an agreement with the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre and three P2Vs under contract through private companies. The newest plane in the group is 51 years old. The oldest was built in 1953. Ten years ago, the Forest Service’s aging fleet of contracted airplanes came under intense scrutiny after two of them literally fell apart in midair while fighting fires, killing a total of five people. One of those planes, a PB4Y-2 originally built for the Navy during World War II, plummeted to the ground near Estes Park when its wings snapped off during flight, killing both pilots. That plane went down weeks after a similar incident in California that was captured on dramatic video. The federal government convened the blue-ribbon panel to study the system, which resulted in a scathing report

that blasted the Forest Service’s air tanker system, calling it “unsustainable” and the industry’s safety record of 136 dead pilots since 1958 “abysmal.” At least four large air tankers have crashed since then, killing 10 people, according to a website tracking the fatalities. The 2002 panel recommended a host of fixes, including that the fleet be modernized, pilots receive more training, planes get more inspections and the contracting process be changed. In 2004, the Forest Service grounded 33 former military air tankers for safety inspections, leading to more planes being eliminated from the pool. The 2009 inspector general’s report accused the Forest Service of weakly justifying to Congress its need for newer planes. The report said the then-fleet of 19 tankers should be retired, saying that “by 2012 the remaining air tankers will begin to be either too expensive to maintain or no longer airworthy.” Last year, the Forest Service ended a contract with a vendor that supplied up to eight planes because the company was not meeting the agency’s airworthiness protocol, said Jones, the Forest Service spokeswoman. That left 11 planes on contract for the 2012 season. On June 3, one of those P2V tankers, similar to some of the planes flying over Larimer County this past week, crashed as it dumped retardant on a 5,000-acre fire near the Utah-Nevada border, killing two on board. The NTSB’s preliminary report of the crash said the plane, built in 1962, veered off its flight path while following the lead plane. That same day, another P2V of the same vintage was forced to make an emergency landing at Nevada’s Minden-Tahoe Airport after part of its landing gear failed to descend. That took the contracted fleet from 11 to nine. Eight of those remaining planes are at least 50 years old, according to Forest Service officials. This year’s aerial resources are adequate, agency officials say. For example, officials are using more waterdropping helicopters and single engine air tankers to augment the heavy

bombers. In addition to the planes on contract, the Forest Service has mobilized eight other large air tankers, including four CV-580s from Canada, one CV-580 from Alaska and one DC-10 that can carry 11,800 gallons of retardant that is fighting fires in Arizona. Two CAL FIRE S-2Ts are operating on an agreement with California and are available only for use in that state. That means the agency is able to deploy 17 tankers with three more due this summer, said Jones. The Forest Service also can petition for the use of eight military C-130s that are equipped with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems. Those aircraft can be called into the fight once private resources are fully tapped or unavailable. Nevertheless, critics and lawmakers continue to demand that the Forest Service add more planes.

“I am unconvinced” Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., in April wrote a letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, pointing out the lack of aerial support. “I am unconvinced the (Forest Service’s) current air tanker fleet is prepared to adequately address an immense wildfire or even what is sure to be a long fire season,” he wrote. “Given the very real and present danger of wildfire in Colorado and throughout the drought-ridden West, and the very possible event of multiple wildfires in different parts of the country, an aging fleet may be ill-prepared to respond with the necessary air support.” When that letter went out, the Forest Service had already issued its modernization strategy, saying in a February report that the P2Vs should be retired by 2021 and that the fleet should eventually be replaced with newer and faster planes. The report said the fleet should consist of up to 28 “next-generation” tankers that carry up to 3,000 gallons of retardant. And Obama’s signing of the bill last week cut the wait period by 30 days. “This is a major milestone in our efforts to modernize the large air tanker fleet,” said Tidwell.

The money is now there for the next two years for seven next-generation planes to be supplied by four companies. Plans presented to Congress call for 18 to 28 next-generation tankers for the system over the next few years. Future funding for all but seven of those planes is up in the air. “You would pretty much have to call what we have at this moment as nothing more than an ad-hoc patchwork quilt to fix this,” said William B. Scott, who recently retired as the Rocky Mountain bureau chief for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine and who also served on the 2002 blueribbon panel. “We are getting planes from Canada, we have a smattering of old ones and ones coming online in the late summer at best,” he said. “The point is they are scrambling to try to get enough together for this fire season.” Hall, the blue-ribbon panel chair, said he has been dismayed by the lack of urgency in Congress as the threat of fire in the West has increased because of climate change and an epidemic of beetle-killed trees. “We put out a report 10 years ago that is as current as if we had issued it yesterday,” Hall said. “This reliance on old military aircraft is not the way that the country needs to address a threat this serious. Why the Forest Service or anyone would think individuals who are putting their lives on the line to save homes and lives should be flying that type of aircraft is beyond me.” Seven next-generation airplanes over the next two years is a good start but not adequate, said Gabbert, whose blog has been following every process. “It doesn’t come close to fixing the problem,” he said. “Experts say we need 30 or 40 or even 50. This decision should have been made 10 to 20 years ago. They knew this day would come. Most of the Western U.S.’s fire season hasn’t even started yet. “When the West really gets into the fire season, that will be the proof.” Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com

H ON O R ED IN O SLO

Suu Kyi said Nobel drew her into world Myanmar opposition leader gives speech 21 years after receiving Peace Prize By Shawn Pogatchnik The Associated Press

oslo, norway» Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi declared Saturday that the Nobel Peace Prize she won while under house arrest 21 years ago helped shatter her sense of isolation and ensured that the world would demand democracy in her military-controlled homeland. Suu Kyi received two standing ovations inside Oslo’s city hall as she gave her long-delayed acceptance speech to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in front of Norway’s King Harald, Queen Sonja and about 600 dignitaries. The 66-year-old champion of political freedom praised the power of her 1991 Nobel honor both for saving her from the depths of personal despair and shining an enduring spotlight on injustices in distant Myanmar. “Often during my days of house arrest, it felt as though I were no longer a part of the real world,” she said. “There was the house which was my world. There was the world of others who also were not free but who were together in prison as a community. And there was the world of the free. Each one was a different planet pursuing its own separate course in an indifferent universe.

“What the Nobel Peace Prize did was to draw me once again into the world of other human beings, outside the isolated area in which I lived, to restore a sense of reality to me,” she said during her 40-minute oration. “… And what was more important, the Nobel Prize had drawn the attention of the world to the struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma. We were not going to be forgotten.” Suu Kyi, who since winning freedom in 2010 has led her National League for Democracy party into opposition in Myanmar’s parliament, offered cautious support for the first steps toward democratic reform in her country. She said progress would depend both on maintaining foreign pressure on the army-backed government and on carefully managing the ethnic tensions that threaten to tear the country apart. Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, introduced Suu Kyi as a leader of “awe-inspiring tenacity, sacrifice and firmness of principle.” “In your isolation, you have become a moral leader for the whole world,” he said from the podium, turning to the seated Suu Kyi. Later Saturday, Suu Kyi addressed a public rally that attracted about 10,000

Aung San Suu Kyi, center, lights a flame for peace with Norwegian children Saturday in Oslo. Daniel Sannum Lauten, AFP/Getty Images Oslo locals and tourists, many from foreign cruise liners docked along the capital’s shoreline. Many waved Norwegian flags and leaflets bearing Suu

Kyi’s image as she thanked the Norwegian people for giving so many of her countrymen and women sanctuary from oppression.

Speech excerpts • “To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity. When I met Burmese migrant workers and refugees during my recent visit to Thailand, many cried out: ‘Don’t forget us!’ They meant: ‘Don’t forget our plight. Don’t forget to do what you can to help us. Don’t forget we also belong to your world.’ When the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to me, they were recognizing that the oppressed and the isolated in Burma were also a part of the world.” • “When I joined the democracy movement in Burma, it never occurred to me that I might ever be the recipient of any prize or honor. The prize we were working for was a free, secure and just society where our people might be able to realize their full potential. The honor lay in our endeavor. History had given us the opportunity to give of our best for a cause in which we believed. When the Nobel Committee chose to honor me, the road I had chosen of my own free will became a less lonely path to follow.”

6B» DENVER & THE WEST

sunday, june 17, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

The Cache la Poudre Canyon is blanketed by smoke from the High Park fire on Saturday. The official tally of homes burned in the fire has reached 181. Photos by Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

WEATHER: Greater detail wanted in data «

FROM 1B

managers — have greatly improved in the last 10 years, she said, but they still aren’t good enough. “We need greater resolution in real time,” she said, referring to the institute and other collaborators at the NOAA Earth System Research Lab in Boulder. “We need more detailed observations of the atmosphere from the ground up to several thousand feet.” Fires are fought on the ground a few feet at a time, she said, so knowing what’s generally expected over a few square miles isn’t enough. To take the next leap forward, Schranz said, more instrumentation is needed to obtain more data. Several hundred thousand dollars for purchase of mobile atmospheric surface observing systems, or ASOS, and unmanned aircraft would yield better forecasts. “It’s chump change compared with some projects,” Schranz said. “Right now, we don’t have any funding to be at the fire — to be in the field.” The High Park fire is complicated because topography and elevation are highly varied, fire managers have said. The fuels are especially volatile because of dry conditions and beetlekilled trees. And the fire is in the wildland-urban interface. Houses burn differently from trees. The High Park fire is also a crown fire — jumping through the air, throwing firebrands at treetops and roof-

tops. “We don’t know how to predict the effects of all these factors,” Schranz said. “We don’t know why one house is left standing with the forest burned all around it. We don’t know why another house burns down but the trees around it are spared.” National Weather Service meteorologist Kyle Fredin said when scientists talk of wildfires creating their own weather, they mean weather on a very small scale. “A fire can create stronger winds in the immediate vicinity — slightly stronger than the prevailing winds and more erratic,” he said. “Fires can drive themselves. If they have fuel and space, they can run faster than the prevailing wind. But it’s predominantly directed and influenced by general weather patterns.” Yet research has just begun on how large smoke plumes affect clouds hundreds of miles from the flames that made them, Schranz said. “We have satellite pictures from the California fires that show that no high clouds formed above the smoke plume. We don’t know why not,” Schranz said. “But when there’s a large fire with smoke plume that hangs about in the atmosphere, you get some shading of the surface or something else that inhibits natural cloud formation.” Another cloud phenomenon associated with forest fires and volcanic eruptions is the pyrocumulus cloud. Intense heating of air from the surface

181 Number of homes lost in the High Park fire

More than 54,000 Acres burned in the fire

70% Portion of the fire on private land

30% Portion of the fire on federal land

At a briefing at the National Guard Armory in Fort Collins on Saturday, Gov. John Hickenlooper shows a photo of a tree that was hit by lightning last weekend, sparking the High Park fire. Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post induces convection, which causes an air mass to rise above the fire and, in the presence of moisture, can induce formation of this cloud. A pyrocumulus can contain severe turbulence, which can result in strong gusts at the surface. The cloud can produce lightning and even rain, but Fredin said it’s rare to get a thunderstorm out of it.

“(Pyrocumuli) are something else we’d like to figure out,” Schranz said. “We don’t know all the triggers for those. We don’t know now, but might know retrospectively, whether the High Park fire produced a pyrocumulus cloud.” Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com

At denverpost.com. Get live blog updates on the High Park fire, see video of firefighting efforts, view slide shows of Denver Post and reader photos, and read previous stories on the blaze and its effects. »denverpost.com

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HIG H PA R K F IR E

“

Before we know it, gay marriage will be like women’s voting rights or black voting rights — just a thing in history. I’m positive that it will happen in my generation.” Rachel Chaffee, PrideFest attendee

High winds stymie e≠orts 18 helicopters are grounded as Hewlett Gulch subdivision residents are told to evacuate.

A participant of Denver’s PrideFest parade smiles for the crowd Sunday. Ashton Sainz, 18, of Arvada, foreground, and Michael Sopiwnik, of Denver, background, attend the event to help spread awareness about the importance of safe sex. Another parade participant blows kisses to the crowd as the procession makes its way up Broadway. Photos by Heather Rousseau, The Denver Post

Politicians, attendees exude political charge at PrideFest By Sarah Simmons The Denver Post

n the wake of the civil unions bill that died a procedural death in the Republican-controlled Colorado House in May and President Barack Obama’s recent vocal support of gay marriage, this year’s Denver PrideFest had a particularly political charge.

Saturday and Sunday marked the 37th year for the event that celebrates Colorado’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender communities. Sunday’s parade was more than a mile long, and by afternoon, Civic Center was packed with people dancing in front of three separate stages

and lounging in the grassy areas. Several Colorado politicians and political organizations attended to show support for the GLBT community and used the past month’s developments as a chance to mobilize voters and raise funds. Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, was one

of the parade marshals on Sunday, and he said that this year emotions surrounding the civil unions bill — which would have passed with Republican support had GOP leadership allowed it to go to a full House vote — and Obama’s announcement were tangible among the crowd. “The right tone has been set this year during an election year — and such an important election year,” Steadman said. “We’re potentially electing the most supportive president our community has ever seen in the White House and a legislature that every year gets closer to correcting PRIDE » 12A

Wind gusts of up to 50 mph have been screaming across the High Park fire, forcing helicopters that have been helping fight the blaze west of Fort Collins to stay on the ground and prompting a number of new evacuations. The choppers — 18 are fighting the fire — are down until further notice. Winds blowing at 30 to 50 mph across the blaze, helped the fire grow on Sunday to 56,480 acres. As a precautionary move, residents of the Hewlett Gulch subdivision were told to evacuate their homes Sunday afternoon, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Kristy Wumkes. “We didn’t want anyone getting stuck in there,” she said. Though residents of some areas evacuated last week have been allowed to return to their homes, evacuations remain in effect for many others in the burned area. A critical “red flag” fire danger warning for the High Park fire expired at 8 p.m. Sunday, and nearly on cue gusts died down on the fire, but crews were preparing for a long night ahead, fire management team spokesman Brett Haberstick said. Humidity is expected to remain in the 3 percent to FIRE » 8A

RODNEY KING: 1965-2012 The video of Rodney King’s 1991 beating by Los Angeles police officers led to a public outcry against police brutality.

AmericanHomecomings

Beaten driver wanted us all to “get along”

His journey home spanned spiritual, mental dimensions By Nancy Lofholm The Denver Post

montrose» “The stars.” Tim Kenney doesn’t miss a beat when asked whether he saw anything good in Afghanistan. The stars made him feel close to God — and close to his family. “Sitting in the mountains of Afghanistan, I would look at the stars, and it was like God was saying, ‘I am here. I am watching over you even though you are going through hell. And I am watching over your family. Look at this beautiful creation I’ve made.’ ” He and his wife, Trish, shared the firmament as a connection while he was deployed with an Army National Guard combat unit as an armored-truck gunner for 10 months. Trish would be looking into the heavens

By Tegan Hanlon The Denver Post

By Jesse Washington The Associated Press

Tim Kenney, center, and his family have attended First Church of the Nazarene since moving to Montrose. Mahala Gaylord, The Denver Post from their ranch south of Montrose and marvel that she and her husband on the other side of the world were viewing the same thing. “That’s crazy,” she remembers thinking. “Tim and I are looking at the same moon,

the same stars.” That kind of emotional connection would be broken when Tim came home at the end of April 2011. He was physically disabled by hits from roadside explosive devices and SOLDIER » 3A

Twenty years later, Rodney King’s simple yet profound question still lingers, from the street where Trayvon Martin died all the way to the White House: “Can we all get along?” Spoken as fires of rage and frustration wrecked Los Angeles, the quote distilled centuries of racial strife into a challenge — and a goal. Today, the answers to that question measure the lasting significance of King, who died Sunday in California, after he was found at the bottom of his swimming pool. He was 47. “It was a critical question at a moment of crisis that forged our human bonds with one another,” KING » 10A

8A» NEWS

monday, june 18, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

FIRE: No evidence of looting, sheri≠ says «

FROM 1A

8 percent range Monday, wind gusts up to 30 mph, with temperatures in the 90s at 8,000 feet, where the fire is being fought. “Today, expect worse,” Haberstick said, characterizing Monday’s expected fight. “We’ll have to see what Mother Nature throws at us and react to it.” On Sunday, the increased fire activity prompted emergency workers to move the Colorado 14 road block from Gateway Park back to Ted’s Place, with access to Poudre Canyon from the roadblock limited to fire personnel only. The blaze is 45 percent contained, and while rumors of looting have circulated, there has been no evidence of that, said Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith. A man was arrested after firefighters found him driving a vehicle bearing unauthorized government plates within the fire area. Michael Maher, 30, has been charged with obstructing fire and police operations, displaying government plates, and impersonating a firefighter and police official. Maher was seen in the fire zone Saturday night driving a silver Toyota Tacoma with a government license plate. The vehicle was later spotted in Laporte, and deputies found Maher at a bar in the town. Deputies found stolen property and a firearm in the vehicle, and the plate reportedly was stolen from the Glenwood Springs area. “If anyone is sneaking around there, we are going to find them,” Smith said. Maher has an arrest record that includes driving under suspension, driving under the influence and domestic violence, with all the offenses recorded in Eagle County. The fire has destroyed 181 homes, making it the most destructive blaze in Colorado history. Still, firefighters have protected 529 residences, said Bill Hahnenberg, incident commander for the High Park fire. “That is a success story on the part of these folks that are working hard out there,” Hahnenberg said. Fire spotting has been reported in Lawrence Creek, Redstone Canyon and Horsetooth Mountain, possibly threatening communication towers. Firefighters have built a line around a spot fire that is roughly 200 acres on the north side of Poudre Canyon near Steven’s Gulch. The fire is in steep terrain and timber and is difficult to access by ground. “We don’t want fire to get started on this side of the river and become a threat to the Glacier View subdivision,” Hahnenberg said. Firefighters have accomplished most of the containment along the fire’s southern flank. The most dangerous portions of the blaze continue to be on the southwest and northwest flanks. In addition to the winds, temperatures today soared to a record high of 98 degrees with low humidity, creating conditions that could spread the fire. “We expect the southwest to continue to be problematic, primarily because of the weather change around noon,” Hahnenberg said. “The fire could become a real threat south of Buckhorn Road.” On the plus side, the blaze has moved somewhat to the west, taking it to an area of meadow where there is less dry timber and other fuels to consume, he said. Firefighters are “pretty confident,” that even with the wind, lines they have built will hold, Hahnenberg said. “But there are conditions that sometimes we can’t overcome,” he said. More than 1,600 firefighters are now

Golfers walk across the Link-N-Greens Golf Course in Fort Collins as the High Park fire burns on Sunday. High winds caused smoke to blow eastward into Fort Collins and the surrounding area. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

Springer fire spreads fast in Pike forest By The Denver Post

David Benjamin, 32, plays with his daughter, Aliya, 6, as they strive to add some normalcy to their lives after they were evacuated from their home in Upper Buckhorn. John Leyba, The Denver Post working the blaze, and the cost of the fire is now at $12.6 million — the most expensive in Colorado history. Smith said that even when people are informed that their homes have burned, they are showing remarkable grace. “The first thing they do is thank the firefighters,” Smith said.

Emergency workers have been doing a “windshield assessment” to count burned homes, recording some structures that, though burned, may not have been homes, Smith said. A more accurate assessment will begin Tuesday, he said. Fire evacuees may pick up “disaster

cleanup recovery kits” — that include sifters, shovels, rakes, work gloves, masks and trash bags — at the Johnson Hall on the Colorado State University campus, where the Red Cross has set up a resource and distribution center. The center is open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekends.

Wildfire evacuees take it day by day Between portable toilets and worn-out welcomes, residents still make due By Tegan Hanlon The Denver Post

fort collins» Peggy Sanchez knew she was wearing out her welcome at a cousin’s house, and Jim Bruce and Gerri Wimberly were running out of money staying at a hotel. As the days wear on in the battle against the High Park fire, the people ordered to evacuate their homes are coping with their own day-to-day challenges. Sanchez, her husband and their two Chihuahuas, Chum and Defense, were forced to leave their house in Poudre Canyon a week ago. A neighbor was knocking on our door at 2 a.m., Peggy Sanchez, 45, said. For a few days the couple stayed with relatives in the Denver area, but soon the cousin was mentioning how roads looked to be opening up, dropping hints.

Jim Bruce and Gerri Wimberly, who fled their Davis Ranch home June 9, first stayed in a hotel room with six other people before finding lodging in a friend’s parked Winnebago. John Leyba, The Denver Post For the last two days the couple has been staying at the Red Cross evacuation center at The Ranch. “It’s been hard, very hard. I wish we

could go home. I just want home,” Sanchez said. Jim Bruce, 61, and Gerri Wimberly, 57, fled their Davis Ranch home June 9.

At first they share a two-bed hotel room with six other people, Wimberly said. When expense and togetherness got to be too much, they managed to find lodging in a 1960s Winnebago in a friends’ cluttered, Fort Collins yard. “It’s pretty cool; I like it,” said Wimberly. “The only thing I don’t like is the Porta Potty situation.” Ray Goedl, 63, drove out of his Davis Ranch home in a pickup truck with two pigs, while his wife drove their Subaru Outback. Since then, Goedl has found lodging for his pigs with a friend of his son, who has a pen. But after a couple of days at their son’s home, the Goedls decided to move to a motel. Then late last week, Goedl heard from a friend who is a firefighter that his home had burned “It’s too confusing right now to think of anything beside putting one foot in front of the other,” Goedl said. Tegan Hanlon: 303-954-1729 or thanlon@denverpost.com

A wildfire is spreading quickly in Park County on the Pike National Forest, according to the U.S. Forest Service, just a few miles from where crews finished containing another fire over the weekend. The new fire, dubbed the Springer fire, has burned about 300 acres, up from about 2 to 4 acres estimated at 1 p.m. Sunday just after the fire was reported to the Pueblo Interagency Dispatch. The Eleven Mile Canyon has been evacuated, and the area is closed. New evacuation orders were issued Sunday for Wagon Tongue, Echo Valley Ranch, Circle C Ranch, Beaver Ranch, and County Roads 98 and 403. In Teller County, evacuation orders also have been given to residents in Wilson Lakes, Forest Glenn and Bloom Mountain. The Red Cross is setting up a shelter for evacuees at Summit Elementary in Divide. Forest Service spokesman Gregg Goodland said he had no estimate yet on how many homes are in those areas. Five engines, four “heavies,” and five single-engine air tankers, as well as several ground crews from multiple agencies are now working the fire. Forest Service spokesman Ralph Bellah said a Type 2 team likely will take over command of fire operations today. He said a Type 3 team also has been ordered but crews will come in from California and may take longer. Bellah could not say if fire resources were thin or scarce as a result of the multiple wildfires. “They get here when they can, whatever resources are available,” Bellah said. Crews working on the Springer fire, about 3 miles south of Lake George, can see the Arkansas fire nearby reported last week about two miles west of Lake George. The Arkansas fire, started by lightning, has burned about 30 acres, and was contained over the weekend.

Latest. Fire updates » denverpost.com/breakingnews

Photos. See a slide show of images from the High Park fire » denverpost.com/coloradophotos

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Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2012

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Idea Log: Updated commentary and insight from Denver Post Opinion at The Idea Log. »blogs.denverpost.com/opinion

Boulder firm giving condoms to Haitians

HIGH PARK FIRE | NO END IN SIGHT

More homes burn Blaze hits 58,770 acres even as winds calm

Sir Richard’s expects to continue donating after first 500,000 By John Mossman The Denver Post

Can a man make a better condom and simultaneously save the world? Jim Moscou claims it can be done and wants to be that guy. Moscou is the chief executive of Sir Richard’s Condom Co. in Boulder, a somewhat irreverent but philanthropic company that was founded in 2009 with a clear mission. Taking its cue from Toms Shoes, which donates a pair of shoes to the needy for every pair purchased, Sir Richard’s vows that for every condom sold, the company will donate another to people in developing countries in an attempt to combat HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. The first giveaway — 500,000 condoms — is in progress. Moscou returned this month from a nineday trip to Haiti, where his company works with Partners in Health, a Boston-based nonprofit that began addressing the healthcare needs of Haitians in 1987. CONDOMS » 11A

Smoke rises into the sky as the High Park fire burns near Highway 74 west of Glacier View Meadows on Monday. Officials confirmed that another eight homes had burned down in the fire, bringing the total to 189 homes lost. AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

Jim Moscou, chief executive of Sir Richard’s Condom Co., sits in his Boulder office. Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

2012 LIBERTARIAN HOPEFUL

Ex-New Mexico Gov. Johnson offers 3rd choice By Lynn Bartels The Denver Post

Presidential hopeful Gary Johnson’s message to voters is that he’s better on civil-libertarian issues than Democrat Barack Obama and better on dollars-and-cents issues than Republican Mitt Romney. In the West, where several states will be crucial in determining who wins in November, Johnson, running on the Libertarian ticket, is an attractive conveyer of that message. The erstwhile Republican served two terms as governor of New Mexico, a state where he’s polling at 12 percent. He’s a strong advocate of state’s rights. And as an added edge in Colorado, he has raced eight times in the Leadville Trail 100 mountain-bike race and has a long string of extreme-athlete bona fides. Johnson’s strengths introduce an interesting dynamic: If the presidential race in Colorado is as close as some pundits preJOHNSON » 7A

Suspect has long rap sheet The man charged with impersonating a firefighter is no stranger to local police. By Jessica Fender The Denver Post

The man with the wildland gear strapped to his chest and the red bandanna on his brow talked a good game when he showed up at the Shambhala Mountain Center early Friday afternoon. A small team of community members at the Buddhist retreat were preparing the facility in case the High Park fire crept closer. They wouldn’t turn down the help of the purported federal firefighter who had shown up earlier at a briefing at the local firehouse. “He knew his stuff. He gave helpful information,” said Zane Edwards, whose Tibetan title “rusung” means he’s in charge of health and safety at the center. “He had with him maps. A radio. He could have genuinely wanted to help us out.” But by the next day, Michael Maher, 30, was charged with a felony for allegedly stealing supplies meant for crews battling the High Park blaze. He was also charged with impersonating a firefighter, obstructing a peace officer and attempting to influence a public servant. He was advised of those charges Monday afternoon in the Larimer County Jail. He had been spotted two days earlier wandering through the fire zone in his truck and arrested IMPOSTOR » 6A

Michael Maher, visiting the Shambhala Mountain Center on Friday, has previously been charged with sexual assault, harassment and other offenses, according to police. Karl Gehring, The Denver Post

By Joey Bunch and Kieran Nicholson The Denver Post

larimer county» Monday’s predicted convergence of high temperatures and gusty winds failed to materialize at the High Park fire — but the day brought news of more destruction as authorities confirmed that another eight homes had been claimed by the flames. That disclosure pushed to 189 the total of residences destroyed in the second-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The homes were lost between Buckhorn and Redstone Canyon, after winds pushed the fire into previously unburned fuel within the fire’s perimeter. The fire has burned an estimated 58,770 acres. Officials were attempting to notify the residents of those homes that were lost Monday afternoon. Hundreds of evacuees could be kept away for weeks as crews fight the fire, clear roads and restore utilities. John Schulz, spokesman for the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, said authorities could not risk allowing people to return and then have no way to reach them if the fire turns back in their direction. The lightning-sparked fire has been burning west of Fort Collins since June 9 and remained at 50 percent containment Monday afternoon. Is there an end in sight for the 10-day-old fight? “We hope so, but we can’t predict when that is yet,” said Brett Haberstick, spokesman for the federal incident-management team coordinating the attack. Winds Monday were calmer than expected, he said. FIRE » 6A

Also: 970 acres burning near Lake George »2A Online: Updates on the High Park and Spencer fires »denverpost.com

6A» NEWS

tuesday, june 19, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

FIRE: Security increases in burn area

FROM 1A

Detail area 70

Denver

Monday

Red Feather Lakes Rd.

COLORADO

DEER MEADOW Hewlett fire GLACIER VIEW burn area MEADOWS High Park total Stevens Gulch burn area: POUDRE 14 CANYON 14 58,770 acres

Rd. ers w Old F l o

Ris t C anyon Rd .

STRATTON PARK

PARADISE PARK

WHALE ROCK eds t

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Source: Larimer County

he said. Haberstick said he expects lower temperatures today, but the winds could pick up. At least three homes were destroyed Sunday as winds out of the west pushed the fire to the

SOLDIER CANYON

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Fire caused by lightning

287

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The fire is burning inside its perimeter mostly along its southwest and northwest flanks. In addition to fighting to contain the blaze, sheriff’s officials on Monday stepped up security at checkpoints around the fire zone to prevent the possibility of looting. More patrols are also roaming the burn area, and a surveillance camera is being used to detect any suspicious activity, officials said. Those moves came a day after deputies arrested Michael Maher for impersonating a firefighter after a truck with government plates was spotted inside the fire zone. The truck contained stolen property and a firearm, according to authorities. Maher was being held on $15,000 bail. Haberstick said calmer winds, less smoke and less intense fire activity on the perimeter made the fight easier Monday. “The interior is still very hot,”

Burn area as of: June 9 June 16

The Denver Post

east, back into areas it had already raced through. “Yesterday really serves as a reminder ... this isn’t a single battle; this is a campaign,” Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said. “We are going to

have some good days. We are going to have some tough days.” “Mother Nature was pretty tough on us” Sunday, added Bill Hahnenberg, the incident commander in charge of firefighters. About 1,700 firefighters were on the lines battling the blaze. As of Sunday, the High Park fire has cost about $12.6 million to fight. Rocky Mountain National Park, south of the High Park fire, issued a burning ban Monday, tightening restrictions and banning campfires and charcoal fires within the 415-squaremile park. Fireworks are always prohibited inside the park, and campfires are typically restricted to designated fire grates. Previous “total” fire bans in the park were ordered in September 2010 and the summer of 2002, park officials said.

FROM 1A

at a LaPorte bar that night. It’s hardly Maher’s first runin with the law — or his first time passing himself off as a firefighter. Law enforcement agents in the mountain communities of Eagle County know “ol’ Mike Maher” by name and can recount offhand his persistent probation violations and bizarre run-ins with local police. Maher has been convicted of sex assault, faced harassment complaints from multiple women, had himself shot in the stomach and been the subject of a protection order after allegedly stalking a police chief’s daughter. Court records show he has avoided serious time by pleading some charges down to misdemeanors and has benefited from work-release and other probation programs. Former Avon Police Chief Brian Kozak remembers Maher, who worked for a local tree service, walking around town dressed as a firefighter and carrying a chain saw or other tools. “He likes to seek attention

that way. It’s probably the way he tries to get close to people,” Kozak said. “They trust him if he’s a firefighter, but his motives are kind of creepy.” Kozak knows from experience. He took out the first restraining order of his 20-year law enforcement career on behalf of his daughter after Maher allegedly showed up daily for a month at her workplace. Even in jail, Kozak said Maher told other inmates he was dating Kozak’s daughter. At one point, the Kozak family believes, he showed up in their driveway. At least three other women have complained of harassment by Maher, either through unwanted contact or repeated phone calls. The former Avon chief, who has since moved on to head the Cheyenne Police Department, said Maher’s family has a second home in Beaver Creek. Records show they hired a highpowered Denver defense attorney for at least one of the criminal cases against him. They couldn’t be reached for comment Monday. Maher’s first and most serious run-in with Colorado law

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enforcement came after a 14year-old girl said Maher had sex with her multiple times. One of the girl’s friends, whose age is unknown, told Vail police that Maher raped her when he gave her a ride home in a separate incident. Maher was 21 at the time. Somehow, those charges were pleaded down to a misdemeanor count of third-degree sexual assault. A spokeswoman for the Eagle County district attorney’s office didn’t know why that happened in Maher’s case but said it’s common when victims are reluctant to stand trial or when there are other complications. Maher is still a registered sex offender. He has repeatedly told police, including in the alleged rape case, that he’s a firefighter, though it’s unclear whether he served on a fire crew at any point. In a domestic-violence report from May 2004, an Avon police officer spotted Maher carrying a fire axe and following a frightened woman down the street, records show. “Maher told (us) that he was a

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firefighter, and because of that, we should just let him go,” wrote Officer Stephen Hodges in his account from that night. After an ex-girlfriend threatened to take out a restraining order against Maher in 2010, he showed up shirtless and bleeding in a parking lot near where he last spoke with her, records show. He said two men shot him in the stomach, and responding officers noted “all he wanted to do is talk about the restraining order.” Later, at the police station, Maher confessed he had asked a friend to shoot him with a rifle. “I should have had him shoot me in the (expletive deleted) head,” he told officers, according to police reports. Until Saturday, that was the last law enforcement had heard of Maher. Not that his arrest surprised Kozak, who said Maher has always given him “the creeps.” “It makes the hair stand up on you when you meet him,” Kozak said.

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Buick’s beautiful sleeper.. Today’s undiscovered bargain in a full-size premium sedan by B. Debel

AUROR A, CO - As with any bargain, you’ll most often find it on the road less traveled. Today, that road leads to Suss Buick GMC, and the bargain is on a used 2011 Buick Lucerne, priced from $22,981 with NO added dealer handling fees, thousands back from the original MSRP of $33,895. If you’re in the market for a full-size premium sedan, go see the Lucerne and take it out for a test drive. You’ll want one… not only because you like the price, but because you like the car. It’s understandable how this beautiful sedan had slipped through the cracks. Having limited production numbers,

and with the last to roll off the assembly line on June 15, 2011, it had minimal buyer exposure. Although Buick has long remained near the top of the charts in terms of quality and durability, it seems few have paid attention. Stuck with the impression of being poorly built by younger Americans, Buick has put forth great effort creating a brand that is worthy of praise. Even the Chinese have embraced the brand, marking Buick as a luxury line and making it one of the most sought after vehicles in their culture. However, Buick still has a hill to climb, pegged with the image of an “old person’s car,” fewer shoppers are visiting Buick showrooms these days,

unaware that Buick is now in a new era and on a quest to reclaim a spot as the premium brand. Visually seductive, this stately Buick beats all other large sedan offerings hands down in terms of styling, quality and value, for under the Lucerne’s beautiful wrappings lies the same solid platform as Cadillac’s magnificent DTS. But from there up it’s every-inch-a-Buick, looking distinctively different than any other GM product. And many will tell you that the Lucerne is a better driving car than the Cadillac, which is a result of Buick’s relentless pursuit to isolate the passenger cabin from the outside world by blocking noise paths at

their source through the use of extensive dampening and insulation. Even the windshield and front side glass have a special layer of laminate to help absorb road noise. Buick touts this as t h e i r exc l u s i ve “Quiet Tuning”, which sounds like just another marketing hype, but you have to experience it to appreciate it. It’s a drive in the clouds. The Lucerne glistens with a level of quality that will blow you away, from its close-tolerance body panels and interior trim pieces to its buttery, finelystitched leather. Although the Lucerne is a big car, there’s nothing big about the way it drives. The handling is crisp and nimble, the braking sure. It’s an absolute delight to drive as it graciously accepts all orders from its captain. With a change from the 3.8liter V6 on the 2008 model, the 2011 is powered by GM’s highly acclaimed 3.9-liter V6. Pumping out a desirable 227 horsepower, it delivers acceleration and performance that will satisfy most drivers and earns a respectable 27 mpg highway economy rating under the more stringent and conservative EPA guidelines. These CXL models come well equipped with heated leather

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bucket seats, and a console shift. Standard features include, 4-wheel disc brakes with ABS, Traction Control, driver and passenger head-curtain sideimpact airbags, a tire pressure monitoring system, a leatherwrapped steering wheel with audio and cruise controls, Home-link, and GM’s OnStar, a comforting travel companion to have aboard on long trips and the most user-friendly navigation system on the planet. Push the Blue button and simply speak your destination, even if you’re lost. A satellite pinpoints your location and a friendly voice guides you with turn-by-turn directions until you get there. Buyers will also enjoy the lion’s share remainder of a 4yr/50,000mile bumper-to-bumper warranty that extends to 5 years and 100,000 miles on the power train. This comprehensive warranty is the best out there amongst premium brands. “With vehicles

lasting m u c h longer than they did in the past, folks tend to get their money’s worth with this wa r r a nt y,” explains Fred Jadidian, a 20 year veteran at Suss. “When you compare other luxury models and the warranty they offer, people will definitely see the savings.” Now is the time to re-introduce yourself to the won’t-let-youdown Buick… And leave all preconceptions you may have at the door. A little wheel time in this premium luxury liner will convince you that maybe you really would rather drive a Buick. Where to find: Suss Buick GMC in Aurora of fers a nice selection of Pre-owned 2011 Lucerne’s in a variety of colors at a starting price of $22,981 with NO dealer handling fees. And trades are always welcomed. Suss Buick GMC is located at 1301 South Havana in Aurora. Sales may be reached 303-306-4001 ©B. Debel 2012 Photo for illustration only #C4147

DUNLAP’S SHOT LANDS IN CHARLOTTE »sports, 1B

Projects aimed at drawing more people to rivers. »4A

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666

The First Lady: Updates on Michelle Obama’s campaign visit to Colorado. »denverpost.com

ILLEGAL-IMMIGRANT STUDENTS

AG: Tuition cut unlawful John Suthers says the state’s higher-ed schools don’t have the authority to create the discounts.

PLANNING THE FIGHT

By Anthony Cotton The Denver Post

Members of the PatRick fire crew of Boise map their route at the High Park Fire Incident Command Post at the National Guard Armory in Fort Collins. Hot, swirling winds complicated the battle against the High Park fire Tuesday. »story, 9A AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post By Jason Blevins The Denver Post

The devastating impact of the High Park fire is blowing through the tourist-dependent economies of northern Colorado. While hotels and restaurants are bustling — packed with firefighters and displaced residents — some of the businesses that rely on outdoor activities are suffering.

High Park update The latest Tuesday on the High Park fire: Acres: 59,845 Containment: 55 percent Homes lost: 189 Firefighters: 1,911 Aerial resources: 17 helicopters, 4 heavy air tankers Evacuations: Pre-evacuation orders issued to residents along Colorado 14 from Pingree Park Road to Glen Echo and north along County Road 69 to Goodell Corner. Cost to date to fight the fire: $17.2 million

Insurance: Evacuees who lost their homes starting to seek ways to rebuild. »11A

Updates: Follow the latest fire news. »denverpost.com

“A lot of our outdoor recreation is not happening right now, and we’ll probably lose that for the summer, but the town is still open and we are rolling,” said Jim Clark , executive director of the Fort Collins Convention & Visitors Bureau. With Colorado 14 closed from Cameron Pass to Ted’s Place, access to the Cache la Poudre River is closed. That’s especially painful this summer because the Poudre is one of only a few rivers with ample flows for rafting. The six outfitters permitted to raft the Poudre have been dormant since June 9. Last summer, the river hosted 37,869 commercial rafting trips from early May through August. “One of the best rivers to raft in Colorado is unavailable, and that hurts,” said Bob Klein, manager of A Wanderlust Adventure rafting company in Fort Collins. Klein estimates his company has missed more than 1,000 rafters, and the fire still rages, with the road still closed. “We would have been booked every day. We were this time last year,” he said. “Our guides are just hanging and waiting and trying to be optimistic. Hopefully we can salvage the season and have a strong July and August.” The venerable, 50-employee Mishawaka Amphitheatre on the banks of the Poudre is closed, and four concerts through June are canceled.

E X-L E ADE R M UBARAK “CL I N IC A L LY D EA D ”

News puts Egypt on even shakier ground By David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim The New York Times

cairo» Former President Hosni Mubarak, who led Egypt for three decades until he was toppled last year in a popular uprising, was on life support at a military hospital late Tuesday after he was declared “clinically dead” by doctors, according to Egyptian officials and state news media. After suffering a stroke in prison Tuesday, Mubarak, 84, was moved to a military hospital. Doctors said they were unable to revive him after he went into cardiac arrest, state news media said. News of Mubarak’s failing health quickly spread through crowds of demonstrators in Tahrir Square, adding a new element of volatility to the growing political and constitutional crisis in the country he once ruled. EGYPT » 14A

TOURISM » 12A

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers on Tuesday said state-supported institutions of higher education do not have the authority to create discounted tuition categories for illegalimmigrant students without legislative approval. The opinion came in response to a query from the Colorado Community College System after Metropolitan State College of Denver’s decision earlier this month to create a new tuition rate for such students. Suthers said Metro’s new rate creates a “public benefit.” Under state law, public benefits can be given only to individuals who can prove their lawful presence in the United States. Metro created its new rate, $3,358 per semester, not long after the state legislature failed to pass the ASSET bill, which would have created a discounted-tuition category for illegal-immigrant students from across the state. Falling under its nonresident student category, Metro State’s new rate is approximately $4,600 less than an out-ofstate student would pay. That action, Suthers said, “is simply not supported by governing law.” “The General Assembly may continue to consider this issue,” Suthers said in a statement. “In the meantime, however, state-supported institutions of higher education in Colorado cannot act unilaterally. Under federal law they must await a decision by the legislature. I am disappointed Metro State decided to proceed in this manner without consulting our office.” Suthers’ opinion is considered a nonbinding interpretation of state law. Suthers was traveling and couldn’t be reached for comment. Deputy AttorTUITION » 8A

C O LO R A D O F O R EC LO S U R ES

Real estate data in Denver point to another wave By David Migoya The Denver Post

Despite reports of a thawing housing market, yet another wave of foreclosures appears to be looming, real estate records filed in multiple metroDenver counties indicate. The recording of deed-of-trust assignments in Colorado — the ownership rights of mortgages and the ability to foreclose on them — has more than doubled in the first five months of the year compared with the same period last year, The Denver Post has found. Some experts say the increase is a sign that lenders are gearing up for a new round of foreclosures, and, if only half the filings become actual foreclosure cases, it could approach the worst of the foreclosure crisis that mushroomed in 2007. HOMES » 17A

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Boulder authorities say vandals who set a fire under a rocket-shaped playground slide could have caused more than mischief in these extreme fire conditions. Firefighters used hand-held extinguishers to put out the fire at Scott Carpenter Park just before 3 a.m. Tuesday. “We’re experiencing some of the most extreme fire danger we’ve had in years,” Boulder Fire Marshal Dave Lowrey said in a statement. “Even a small fire, like the one started in Scott Carpenter Park, can become very dangerous very quickly,” he said. Special patrols are looking for fire risks in Boulder’s parks and other open spaces. Open burning is illegal at all times in the city.

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Ris t C anyon Rd .

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Four heavy tankers pounded a spot fire that slipped its bounds north of Poudre Canyon on Tuesday, trying to keep it from moving closer to the Glacier View neighborhood. Type 1 and Type 2 crews followed on the ground, flanking the 200 acre blaze — again — on its north and west edges. “We jumped on it quickly, and we are confident it will not be an issue,” U.S. Forest Service spokesman Bernie Pineda said. Hot, swirling winds complicated the battle against the High Park fire. Temperatures were in the 90s in the interior of the fire. Relative humidity levels were in the single digits. Smoke coming from the big blaze looked especially menacing Tuesday, which Dave Lipson, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration incident meteorologist, attributed to a pyrocumulus cloud, a weather formation caused by smoke reaching cooler temperatures in the atmosphere. A cold front sliding down the northern Rockies may ease the fight of the High Park fire today and Thursday. The system should deliver temperatures that are 10 to 15 degrees cooler and relative humidity levels as high as 17 percent in some of the stubborn canyon areas. “That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it should help because the relative humidity has been in the single digits,” Lipson said. “Hopefully, with that, we can make some progress.” But the weather relief will be temporary. “Thursday morning, we may wake up to lower temperatures and overcast skys, but things will heat up again Friday,” Lipson said. The 59,845-acre High Park fire, the most damaging, at 189, in the state’s history in terms of homes destroyed, has been burning since June 9 when it was started by lightning. It is 55 percent contained and so far has cost $17.2 million to fight. Linda Steadman, 62, died in the fire at her home on 9123 Old Flowers Road. Incident commander Bill Hahnenberg said there are 1,911 firefighters working the blaze, which now has 49 miles of constructed and contained fire lines. Pre-evacuation notices were sent Tuesday morning to an ad-

DEER MEADOW Hewlett fire burn area MEADOWS High Park total Stevens Gulch burn area: 14 POUDRE 59,845 acres CANYON 14

Pingree Park Rd.

»denverpost.com

COLORADO

. 27

By Sarah Simmons The Denver Post

Red Feather Lakes Rd.

More online: Get the latest updates in the efforts to fight wildfires across Colorado.

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Fire crews are working to keep a smaller fire from inching closer to homes in Glacier View.

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Burn area as of: June 9 Monday

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The Springer fire burning in the foothills west of Colorado Springs was at about 23 percent containment Tuesday afternoon after firefighters took advantage of calm weather and dug an 18-inch fireline along the fire’s northern border, fire information officer Greg Heule said. The line runs from the fire’s northwest corner to north of the South Platte River. The line is a necessary step, but not foolproof, Heule said. “Just because we have line there doesn’t mean that we have containment,” he said. The fire, which was reported Sunday by residents who said they heard gunshots and an explosion, has driven out nuns living in a monastery, Boy Scouts at camp and residents of about 150 homes. The Protection of the Holy

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tery Tuesday said the fire was about 2 miles from the site. She said sacred items from the chapel, including a chalice, along with insurance papers and historical documents were removed as slurry bombers flew over the property. The fire has burned nearly 2 square miles, and fire managers said it still has the potential to grow in an area where logs are drier than pine boards from a lumber yard. Mandatory evacuations have not been lifted, although there were a few residents in that zone who refused to leave, Heule said. “If they choose to stay, they choose to stay,” Heule said. Colorado Springs firefighters have joined other local crews, as well as crews from as far away as Boise, Idaho.

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Owners of homes destroyed in the High Park fire have begun filing insurance claims for property losses and emergency living expenses. Other homeowners on the periphery of the massive wildfire are continuing efforts to create defensible spaces in an attempt to keep flames at bay. State Farm said Tuesday that it has received about 60 claims for complete structural losses among the confirmed 189 buildings destroyed by the fire. Members of the Smith family of Fort Collins returned Tuesday to their vacation cabin in the Cache la Poudre canyon — a few miles west of the fire — to continue mitigation efforts. “We’ve raked up pine needles and pine cones and thrown them in the river,” said Cindy Smith. “We’ve always done a really good job with mitigation in terms of keeping the trees trimmed and the grass cut. Now we’re kind of at Mother Nature’s mercy.” Unlike California, which requires homeowners to reduce or eliminate flammable materials and vegetation within 100 feet of their homes, Colorado has no similar defensible-space law. However, property insurers can mandate the space as a condition of issuing policies. “Brush clearance is No. 1 when it comes to being prepared,” said Farmers Insurance spokesman Jerry Davies. Officials of insurance companies said they can’t yet estimate the number of claims that may be filed or the extent of property losses from the High Park fire. “It’s really too early to tell because we don’t have access to our customers’ property and therefore don’t know the extent of all the damages,” said Kevin Hanson, a large-loss claims team manager for State Farm. Insurance experts said the fire serves as a grim reminder to homeowners to keep their coverage updated. “The majority of people have insurance on their permanent primary residence because it is required for a mortgage. The gaps tend to exist with secondary homes or mountain cabins that are paid off and may be less expensive,” said Carole Walker, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. Walker recommended that homeowners insure for full replacement costs instead of just market value, which may not cover the complete costs of rebuilding. Experts advise that homeowners keep financial documents and home-inventory lists

nies are prepared to begin processing claims without supporting paperwork.

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B Create a home inventory. Use lists, photos and videos to make a record of possessions. This will aid in the filing of claims. B Conduct an annual insurance checkup. Adjust coverage to reflect costs for rebuilding. Consider insuring to cover replacement costs instead of just market value. B Know what is and isn’t covered. Most policies cover damage from fire, wind and hail but not flooding. Flood insurance must be purchased 30 days before a flood claim. B Keep receipts. Out-ofpocket expenses during a mandatory evacuation are reimbursable under most policies. B Check contractors thoroughly. Get estimates from several licensed and bonded contractors. Pre-work payments should not exceed the cost of materials or 20 percent of the total.

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wednesday, june 20, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

TOURISM: Still “plenty to see and do” FROM 1A

“Mishawaka is an important community gathering place. We want to open the doors as soon as we can to offer our distressed neighbors a place where they can gather and grab a bite,” the venue’s general manager, Dani Grant, wrote in a post on the Mishawaka website. “Furthermore, we want to put our 50 plus employees back to work, not to mention the many contractors who depend on our business.” Guest ranches near the blaze are seeing some cancellations but more calls from visitors concerned their holiday may be smoky. “I’ve had a lot of people call and ask what it’s like but only one cancellation,” said Molly Kemper, owner of 27-guest Kenos Llama Ranch and Guest House near Estes Park. “I just couldn’t convince her over the phone that we just haven’t had any ash or smoke.” Perception is part of the problem for towns such as Estes Park and Fort Collins. “We are getting a lot of questions. People are calling to see whether they can still go mountain biking. I think people may be thinking the city is on fire,” said Missy Levinger, owner of the 45-room Armstrong Hotel in Fort Collins, on Monday. “We are really honest. Yesterday was horrible with the smoke. Today, you can’t even tell there’s a fire.” Dan Morin years ago installed an impulse sprinkler and fire-suppressing foam system to cover the lodge at his Sundance Trail Guest Ranch near Red Feather Lakes about 25 miles west of the fire line. He hasn’t had any cancellations and not many concerned calls from his mostly repeat guests. “We have seen this coming for years,” said Morin, whose 24 guests were out on an eighthour horseback ride Tuesday. “We’ve got a full house of mostly repeat customers, and they have been coming for years,

and they have seen us preparing for years.” Downtown Fort Collins remains as busy as usual for early summer. The Colorado Brewers Festival this weekend is on pace for record attendance and the upcoming softball tournaments that draw around 3,000 visitors are still on track for later this month. Still, fiery images of the 58,000-acre High Park inferno sweeping the nation have state tourism leaders jittery. A decade ago, a fire-struck Gov. Bill Owens, fresh off an aerial tour of the state’s drought-fueled wildfires, described the scene as “a nuclear winter,” uttering to national media that “all of Colorado is on fire today.” Tourism to the state plummeted, and tourism business owners assailed the governor. Colorado Tourism Office chieftain Al White said resort communities like Vail are pacing well ahead of last year, but

the wildfire season is still young. “As tragic as the High Park fire is ... that is just a small percent of the 23 million acres of public lands in our state,” White said. “There is still plenty to see and do in Colorado, and, at least up to this point, people still seem anxious to come to Colorado. But having said that, we have a long summer in front of us.” Should widespread cancellations across the state erupt as a result of the wildfire, White said his office “might have to scrape something together” to counter the perception that the state is aflame. “At this point, I’m not quite sure where that money would come from or how and where we would spend it,” he said. “Up to now, businesses have been reporting double-digit increases in reservations.”

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Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire

THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2012

Be the first to know. Learn about breaking news as it happens: Sign up for alerts. »denverpost.com/breakingnews

Metro State holds ground School’s leadership disputes attorney general’s tuition claim By Anthony Cotton The Denver Post

Over the course of an intense, sometimes testy hour, officials from Metropolitan State College of Denver met Wednesday with members of the state legislature’s Joint Budget Committee to discuss its controversial new tuition rate for illegal immigrant

NATION & WORLD

students. In a packed room, Metro State president Stephen Jordan and board member Melody Harris responded to pointed questions from JBC chair Rep. Cheri Gerou and Rep. Kent Lambert, both Republicans. “You are not setting rates, you are creating new categories of rates outside of your

A House panel voted to cite Attorney General Eric Holder, above, for contempt of Congress, just hours after President Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to withhold documents demanded by the committee. »13A

statutory authority,” said Lambert, R-Colorado Springs. “What I would like to know, as a result of the analysis by the attorney general, is Metro State planning on moving ahead and implementing this policy or are they planning to reverse this as we go forward with next year’s budget?”

believes President Barack Obama’s support of immigrants may set a precedent. Karl Gehring, The Denver Post

METRO » 6A

HIGH PARK FIRE | 55 PERCENT CONTAINMENT The High Park fire remains active on the western flanks and in interior islands, and is within a few thousand acres of surpassing the Missionary Ridge fire of 2002 to become the second largest in Colorado recorded history.

HOLDER HELD FOR CONTEMPT

Metro State’s Stephen Jordan

FIREFIGHTERS: Shift from hot spots to containment. HAYMAN FIRE

137,760 ACRES

MISSIONARY RIDGE FIRE

HIGH PARK FIRE

ACRES

70,662

68,200

RESIDENTS: Some allowed to return to their homes. UPDATES. Latest news on High Park fire. »denverpost.com

“We’re not going to move in yet. We’re not going to restock the fridge.” By John Ingold The Denver Post

sponse rate.” More than 4,900 parents completed the survey. There are approximately 76,500 parents whose children attend Douglas County schools. The district plans to resurvey parents this fall. But some are crying foul, saying the

bellvue» For the second time in a week, Sharon and Fran Docherty on Wednesday returned to their firethreatened home perched above Horsetooth Reservoir. And, for the second time in a week, they kept their bags packed once they got there. “We’re not going to move in yet,” Sharon Docherty said. “We’re not going to restock the fridge.” On the best day of firefighting on the High Park fire in days, the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday lifted evacuation orders for hundreds who live around the edges of the blaze. Residents in the Soldier Canyon and Mill Canyon Estates areas, where 301 evacuation notices went out, were allowed back in. Residents in parts of the Glacier View area covering 89 evacuation notices were also allowed back in. They were told, however, to be ready to leave again if necessary. Cooler, more humid weather also allowed firefighters to finally punch back at the third-largest blaze in recorded Colorado history, after three consecutive days of red-flag warnings earlier this week kept fire crews just trying to hang on. “We’ve been patient with the redflag conditions,” fire incident commander Bill Hahnenberg said at a morning news briefing. “Today, we’re going to get aggressive.” By early evening, crews had been able to cage a troublesome spot fire north of Cache la Poudre River, and firefighters were able to conduct back-burn operations to shore up precarious fire lines and to strengthen protection around unburned areas inside the fire’s sprawling perimeter. The fire was estimated at 68,200 acres and 55 percent containment by

SCHOOL » 12A

FIRE » 8A

DENVER & THE WEST

BATTLE OVER BALLOTS HEATS UP IN DENVER Denver County Clerk and Recorder Debra Johnson ripped Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, saying he is “trying for an end run around the court” with a proposed rule governing when clerks may mail ballots to inactive voters. »4A

SPORTS

Fran Docherty gets a glass for his daughter Elin, 5. Fran and Sharon Docherty were two of the more than 300 residents allowed back into their homes in the Mill Creek estates subdivision Wednesday. However, they were told to be on preevacution alert just in case the fire flares up again. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

DOUGL AS COUNT Y SCH O O L S

ICONIC ARTIST OF ATHLETES’ ENERGY DIES

District considers voucher survey “inconclusive”

LeRoy Neiman, the artist best known for evoking the kinetic energy of the world’s biggest sporting events, has died. »6B

The Douglas County School District has deemed its spring survey of parents “inconclusive” — a poll in which a majority of responding parents saw the district’s suspended voucher program as “unfavorable”

By Carlos Illescas The Denver Post

and expressed unhappiness with the district’s overall direction. District officials contend that not enough parents participated in the survey to make it a valid representation. As a result, they stamped every page of survey results posted on the district’s website in red letters saying: “Inconclusive due to insufficient re-

8A» NEWS

thursday, june 21, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

FIRE «FROM 1A

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Jody Prummer, a member of the Union Hot Shot crew, is covered in dirt after spending eight days behind fire lines on the High Park Fire. His crew is at the end of a 14-day deployment on two separate fires and are heading back home to LaGrande, Ore., Thursday morning.

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Detail area 70

Burn area as of: June 9 Tuesday

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Our thoughts and heartfelt support are with you. We know everyone is facing unexpected challenges during these difﬁcult times.

Ris t C anyon Rd .

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To those affected by the High Park ﬁre,

2 miles

Hewlett fire burn area

area: 68,200 acres

BELLVUE

Pingree Park Rd.

©B. Debel 2012

Wednesday

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rn Rd.

Source: Larimer County

It could be days before the family unpacks, Fran said, and maybe weeks before they start to feel at home again. It will be even longer before home starts looking like home again. Sharon Docherty said the family is lucky — their neighborhood is only “crispy around the edges.” But a media tour inside the fire’s perimeter revealed a matte black landscape — denuded of grass and shrubs,

ton

A meteor grounded planes fighting the Springer fire in the Pike National Forest Wednesday afternoon and amazed witnesses across Colorado. Heavy air tankers were allowed to resume flights about 90 minutes later, fire team spokesman Ron Roth said. The North American Aerospace Defense Command based at Peterson Air Force Base in El Paso County doesn’t think whatever fell was man-made. The incident near the fire was first reported near Badger Mountain, a 11,294-foot peak in Park County along U.S. 24. Ron Davis, who lives parttime in Lake City, said by e-mail that he was hiking on Redcloud Peak in Hinsdale County when

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the end of the day, with much of the new growth in size occurring on the fire’s northwestern side in wilderness. The cost of fighting the fire now is estimated at $19.6 million. Today’s weather is also expected to aid firefighters. “We are very encouraged by what we're doing on the fire,” fire spokesman Brett Haberstick said. The progress gave Larimer County officials confidence enough to lift the evacuation orders it made Wednesday. And John Schulz, a sheriff’s office spokesman, said residents in parts of the Poudre Park area could be allowed home today. “We’re slowly trying to get people back in as quickly as we can,” Schulz said. “The people who are on the interior of the fire ... it’s going to be some time.” The Dochertys said they are grateful for the work of the firefighters and emergency management officials — a sentiment echoed on hand-drawn signs up and down rural Larimer County roads. But their homecoming was also a reminder of how far from normal the communities impacted by the fire are. The Dochertys’ neighborhood remains on a pre-evacuation alert — like the rest of the reopened areas — meaning the family must be ready to flee at any time. They have already been through this dance once, being evacuated June 10, allowed back home Saturday and re-evacuated Sunday. Their children’s school, the Stove Prairie school, is still standing. But many of the families whose children attend the school lost their homes, leaving the Dochertys both grieving for their friends’ losses and wondering about the future of the school. The lingering uncertainty is unnerving, both to Sharon and Fran and to their children. The couple’s 7-year-old son has been having nightmares, Sharon said. “The strangest thing for me was to know I had to pack a bag to be at my house,” Sharon said. “... It’s a very different mode of living.” “We’re pretty skittish,” Fran Docherty added later.

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Horsetooth Reservoir

The Denver Post

spiked with torched trees, poised for inky floods. In many cases, such as in the Missile Silo area, firefighters had been able to save homes even as flames consumed the hillsides above them. “One of the things this neighborhood is going to have to deal with,” Haberstick said, “is erosion.” John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com

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he saw what he thought was silvery “space junk” burning across the sky traveling from north to south with a white tail. “It was an amazing sight,” he said of the spectacle that lasted two to three seconds. Chris Peterson, a research associate at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, said it was not a “shower” but a single meteor. “It was unusual because meteors are seldom bright enough to be noticed during the day, although they occur as often in the day as at night,” he said. The museum operates meteor cameras across the state, but they are turned off during the day, he said Staff writer Peter Dettmann contributed to this story

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JANITORS AUTHORIZE STRIKE VOTE

A neighbor helps maintain the garden created by a late horticulturalist.

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»business, 10A

As jurors deliberate, one of Sandusky’s adopted sons says his father abused him »17A

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Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire

FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012

Heating up: Keep track of the temperatures as summertime throws its first haymaker »denverpost.com/weather A DA M S C O U N T Y A S S ES S M EN T S

“My home was set up for radio astronomy — my whole life, I wanted to do that when I retired. ... The receiver for that? Gone. The antenna? Gone.” Dave Eckhardt, left, and his wife, Pat, lost their Paradise Park home to the High Park fire

After the flames

Powerful family gets tax breaks The Carlsons save $216,000 after contributing to the campaigns of two assessors. By David Olinger The Denver Post

brighton» Adams County Assessor Gil Reyes and his predecessor personally handled dozens of tax appeals from a prominent local family, shaving more than $5 million from the taxable values of their lands. The successful — and unusual — direct appeals to Reyes and W.R. “Skip” Fischer, now the chairman of the county commission, saved the Carlsons, a family of land developers, at least $216,000 in taxes, a Denver Post investigation found. The Carlsons, campaign contributors to both assessors, were especially successful in their appeals to Reyes. Appeal records provided by the assessor’s office show Fischer denied about two-fifths of the Carlson appeals he handled from 1999 to 2003, a year he served as deputy assessor after Reyes’ election in 2002. Reyes upheld proposed appraisals on some lightly taxed tracts of vacant land owned by the Carlsons. But on appeals of properties worth $100,000 or more, they won reductions from Reyes in 31 of 33 cases — a 94 percent success rate. By comparison, 51 percent of all appeals to the Adams County assessor’s office since 1999 have succeeded. ASSESSOR » 8A

American Red Cross workers Carol Brom, left, and Betsy Tammeus work at the Ranch Events Center on Tuesday. The displacement brought on by the High Park fire has been disorienting for workers, as well as evacuees. Photos by Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post By Claire Martin The Denver Post

High Park fire Acres: 68,200 Containment: 55 percent Homes lost: 191 Firefighters: 1,978 Aerial resources: 18 helicopters, 2 heavy air tankers Evacuations: Some evacuations lifted for residents in the Poudre Park area. Cost to date to fight the fire: $19.6 million

Updates. Get the fire news. »denverpost.com

etiree Dave Eckhardt can remember precise details about what happened just before he and his wife, Pat, were evacuated June 10 from their handsome Craftsman home in Paradise Park. But everything since then is a blur. He can tell you what they ate for breakfast (bacon and eggs) on June 9, and that they caught a whiff of the smoke from the growing High Park fire. But Eckhardt, a trim man with wire-rim spectacles and a neat white goatee, recalls nothing about arriving at the Ranch Events Center, the American Red Cross disaster site for fire evacuees. He knows he registered and filled out the questionnaire that gives volunteers a snapshot of an evacuee’s state of mind and needs. Eckhardt probably got something to eat after that. He talked to a counselor who asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, right this minute?”

DENVER & THE WEST

MAYOR’S AIDE FIRED OVER ALLEGED MISCONDUCT A longtime close friend of Mayor Michael Hancock was fired last month from his $85,000-a-year job as Hancock’s aide.»4A

loveland»

“What could I say?” he asked. “I had a 40rank electronic church organ. Gone. I’m a ham radio operator. My home was set up for radio astronomy — my whole life, I wanted to do that when I retired. I was one of only three people who caught a storm on Jupiter last month. The receiver for that? Gone. The antenna? Gone. “It’s all gone now.” Eckhardt knows he and his wife are better off than the handful of evacuees who, with no family or friends to take them in, sleep on cots and bedding in a vast room of the McKee 4-H community building at the Ranch. EVACUEES » 9A

SPORTS

THE KING HAS HIS RING D LeBron James has won a championship. James capped his NBA title bid with 26 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds as Miami beat Oklahoma City 121-106 in Game 5. » 1B

CAMPAIGN 2012

Romney takes softer tone on immigration By Ashley Parker and Trip Gabriel The New York Times

lake buena vista, fla.» Mitt Romney struck a more conciliatory tone toward illegal immigrants Thursday than he took during the Republican primary season, but he backed only limited steps to address the concerns of many Latino voters as he confronted one of the trickiest issues in his efforts to build a broad general-election coalition. Speaking to a group of Latino officials in the heart of a swing state, Romney made his most extensive remarks on immigration since President Barack Obama announced last week that he would use executive authority to allow many young people who are in the country illegally to avoid deportation. Romney pledged to take steps to reduce the number of families broken up by deportation orders, reiterated his support for giving legal status to illegal immigrants who serve in the military and said he would “staple a green card” to the diplomas of immigrants who receive advanced degrees. He did not repeat the language he used during ROMNEY » 7A

the denver post B denverpost.com B friday, june 22, 2012

EVACUEES ÂŤFROM 1A

Detail area

Burn area as of: June 9 Wednesday

Denver

COLORADO

area: 68,200 acres

287

TEDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PLACE

Stevens Gulch

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Hewlett fire burn area

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The dozen or so evacuees staying in that improvised dormitory eat the meals and snacks doled out by volunteers. They get medical help, including prescription refills, from volunteer physicians and nurses. They can take their laundry outside the McKee building to the Southern Baptist Convention disasterrelief truck, where volunteers wash, dry, fold and bag it in the truckâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s portable launderette. While the small army of volunteers at the McKee building stays busy, time hangs heavily for the people who have fled the flames. Like Steven Brown, whose Buckskin Heights house remains perilously close to the active fire, nearly everyone measures time by the number of days since they were evacuated from their homes. Wednesday was Day 11 for Brown, who left his home at 5:17 a.m. June 10, taking a suitcase and his four house rabbits. He thought then it might be a short stint away, like the day-long evacuation for last yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Crystal fire. Instead of heading directly for the Ranchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disasterrelief headquarters, Brown just drove to his parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; house in Fort Collins. Like other High Park fire evacuees who stay with family or friends, Brown religiously attends the daily 3 p.m. community briefing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost track of all time except for 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.,â&#x20AC;? he said. At 9:30 a.m. every day, Brown logs on to the Larimer County emergency-information update website. Then he drives to Masonville, binoculars on the passenger seat. He greets the sheriffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deputies and National Guard officers whose presence discourages homeowners from sneaking past closed roads. He picks up his mail and then peers through his binoculars, studying the mountain ridge near his home. After 20 minutes or so, Brown drives back to the Mayatek office in Loveland, where he designs furniture and art for Chipotle restaurants. He tries

Thursday

Red Feather Lakes Rd.

NEWS ÂŤ9A

rn Rd.

Source: Larimer County

Horsetooth Reservoir

The Denver Post

Steven Brown, sitting near the fire-evacuation center Thursday at the Ranch, evacuated at the beginning of the High Park fire. Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

to concentrate on work â&#x20AC;&#x201D; â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good distraction,â&#x20AC;? he says wryly â&#x20AC;&#x201D; until itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to drive to the 3 p.m. briefing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every day, I go to find out if my neighborhoodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one of the ones lost,â&#x20AC;? he said Wednesday. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our subdivision is only a mile and a half to the fire, and that fire is dynamic. â&#x20AC;&#x153;On Monday and Tuesday, I thought weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d for sure be called into one of those rooms, the breakout rooms, where they tell you whose homes are standing and whose arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m absolutely exhausted. On Day 2, I felt like I hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been home in weeks. On Day 11, it feels like I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been home in months. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lost all track of time.â&#x20AC;? Marlene Husson, a Parker therapist volunteering with the Red Cross, said disorientation is common among not only the evacuees but the volunteer firefighters and law enforcement workers as well.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have no direction, especially that first week,â&#x20AC;? Dave Eckhardt said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have flashbacks. You have blackout sessions. You have bawling sessions. You cannot sleep. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It plays with your mind. I walked out of the community meetings so disoriented, I was lost. Pat went blank when we were at Samâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Club on Saturday. We had to shop for me because Pat couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bring herself to shop for herself too.â&#x20AC;? Last weekend marked the Eckhardtsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; 33rd wedding anniversary. Their retirement home, a customized Craftsman with quarter-sawn oak detail that Pat Eckhardt spent months researching, is gone. But they still have Missy, their Scottish terrier. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I told Pat that the best gift we could give each other was starting over,â&#x20AC;? Eckhardt said. Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com

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STEAMBOAT: LOW WATER, LOW REVENUE »business, 14A

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Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire

SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2012

High Park fire: Get updates on the disaster, slide shows, an updated map and more. »denverpost.com

More homes incinerated

A house in the Glacier View neighborhood is fully engulfed in flames from the High Park fire Friday.

By Erin Udell and Joey Bunch The Denver Post

Fire update Officials estimated its size at 69,543 acres and said Friday’s losses caused the blaze to drop from 60 percent contained to 45 percent. More than 1,800 firefighters are fighting the blaze, which has cost $21.6 million so far to fight.

larimer county» A resurgent High Park fire, already the most destructive in state history, consumed even more homes Friday, as hot weather and high winds allowed the blaze to rage northward. A spot fire sprung from wind-blown embers that shot out of the main blaze erupted north of the Poudre Canyon, prompting the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office to issue 998 new evacuation notices for homes. By late afternoon, officials said the spot fire had grown to perhaps 2,000 acres. That ad-

ditional acreage pushed the High Park fire — at more than 70,000 acres — close to becoming the second-largest in state history, behind only the Hayman fire. Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith confirmed at an evening news briefing that the fire had destroyed five to 10 homes in the southern part of the Glacier View subdivision and in the Hewlett Gulch Road area. “Today was a tough battle for all the personnel on the line,” Smith said. “It was one

9News

FIRE » 10A

L I F E I N PR ISO N IS LIKELY

“DE-BRUCING” PROPOSED

Sandusky guilty in sex abuse of boys

Denver to ask for more revenue

Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 45 of 48 counts. He was accused of sexually abusing boys over a 15-year period.

PR makeover Church of Scientology takes higher profile across U.S. and in Denver, where it just opened a new facility

By Jeremy P. Meyer The Denver Post

By Genaro C. Armas and Mark Scolforo The Associated Press

bellefonte, pa.» Jerry Sandusky was convicted Friday of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years, accusations that shattered the Happy Valley image of Penn State football and led to the firing of Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno. Sandusky, 68, a retired defensive coach who was once Paterno’s heir apparent, was found guilty of 45 of 48 counts. He showed little emotion as the verdict was read. The judge ordered him to be taken to the county jail to await sentencing in about three months. Many of the charges carry mandatory minimum sentences, and Sandusky is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. In court, Sandusky half-waved toward family as the sheriff led him away. Outside, he calmly walked to a sheriff’s car with his hands cuffed in front of him. The accuser known in court papers as Victim 6 broke down in tears upon hearing the verdicts in the courtroom. Afterward, a prosecutor embraced him and said, “Did I ever lie to you?” The man, now 25, testified that Sandusky called himself the “tickle monster” in a shower assault. He declined to comment to a reporter afterward. His mother said, “Nobody wins. We’ve all lost.” Almost immediately after the judge adjourned, cheers could be heard from a couple hundred people gathered outside the courthouse as word spread that Sandusky had been convicted. The crowd included victim advocates and local residents with their kids. Many held up their smartGUILTY » 10A

Residents will likely vote on whether to let the city keep $67 million in refundable tax. After more than a year of discussion about how to address Denver’s chronic budget shortfall, city officials are expected to ask voters in November to allow the city to keep $67 million a year in tax revenues that otherwise would be returned to property owners. If approved, the money would allow the city to keep libraries open longer, hire new police officers and firefighters, repave streets and replace aging vehicles. It also means property owners would see their taxes increase by $111 a year on the average $225,000 home by 2016, when the change would be fully implemented. The tax change would be phased in over three years, allowing the city to retain $44 million the first year.

Scientologists Ali Pruitt and her son Turner, 11, view material at the new Church of Scientology of Denver building at 23rd and Blake streets this week. City officials spoke on church talking points at the building’s opening a week ago. The 44,000-square-foot church is one of 31 new facilities the Church of Scientology has opened in recent years worldwide as it strives for mainstream acceptance after years of controversy and marginalization. Andy Cross, The Denver Post

TAXES » 13A

City withholds audio. Officials refuse to release recording in the firing of Hancock aide. »4A

By Eric Gorski The Denver Post

The church’s grand-opening celebration filled a city block near Coors Field with pomp and circumstance: white and blue balloons floating skyward, confetti shot from a cannon, cheering throngs. A seven-camera crew captured the Hollywood-style production by the Church of Scientology. Denver Police Chief Robert White and City Councilman Albus Brooks offered warm endorsements — both working from talking points provided by the church.

DENVER & THE WEST

Known for its celebrities and controversies, the Church of Scientology is taking a higher profile in Denver and other cities by renovating historic buildings and transforming them into gleaming new churches to serve members and the broader community. As part of that effort, the church has successfully recruited community leaders to praise its drug-prevention programs, commitments to homeless initia-

Denver set a record high temperature Friday, passing the old mark of 98 degrees just after 1 p.m. and then climbing to 102 degrees before 4 p.m. The old record for June 22 had been established in 1874. »4A

tives and other outreach work. The June 16 gala cut the ribbon on a 44,000square-foot church in a 1916 building that originally housed the American Radiator Co. The church paid $8.5 million in cash last year for the property in the 2300 block of Blake Street. Church officials say local members raised the money CHURCH » 12A

102

10A» NEWS

saturday, june 23, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

FIRE «FROM 1A of those days where you feel like you have a dragon by the tail and it’s alive.” The fire had already burned 191 homes, the most of any fire in Colorado history. Friday’s losses were dispiriting after two days of relatively good weather allowed crews to start getting a handle on the blaze, which is now two weeks old. The day opened with officials reporting 60 percent containment of the fire. It ended with 45 percent. Weather throughout the weekend is expected to continue to favor the fire, with high temperatures and low humidity. Those kinds of conditions make it dangerous for firefighters to even stand up to the blaze, much less push back. “We just have days like we did today where we have to bring firefighters out because we can’t deal with the rapid spread of fire,” fire incident commander Bill Hahnenberg said. However, Hahnenberg said firefighters had been working hard to thin fuels and water ground around homes north of Poudre Canyon, something he hoped would spare those houses. And, he said, the fire could soon start burning into forest already consumed this year by

GUILTY «FROM 1A

the Hewlett fire, depriving it of fuel. “This is bad right now,” said Jim McMinn, a retired pastor who evacuated Friday with his wife, despite not receiving an official order to do so. “The fire departments are doing what they can, and we all have to help each other and put the rest of it in the Lord’s big hands.” As the newly spawned fire grew Friday, officials raced to keep ahead of it with evacuations. At 2 p.m., residents in the Hewlett Gulch Road area were told to get out. At about 3 p.m., hundreds of residents in the sprawling Glacier View area were told to evacuate. At about 7 p.m., residents in Poudre Park and other areas along Colorado 14, who had been allowed to return Thursday, were told to leave again. Bill and Pat Smith, 12-year residents of the Glacier View subdivision, had just returned home from a four-day trip to California with their 8-year-old grandson Casey and were unpacking their bags when they got the evacuation notice. “We had the suitcases unpacked, and we got the call,” Pat Smith said. “So we just packed back up, got in the car, and left. We didn’t even have time to sit down.” “God started it, and he’s going to put it out,” Pat Smith added. “We’ve lived 12 wonderful years

45 of 48 counts

phones to take pictures as people filtered out of the building. Eight young men testified in a central Pennsylvania courtroom about a range of abuse, from kissing and massages to groping, oral sex and anal rape. For two other alleged victims, prosecutors relied on testimony from a university janitor and then-graduate assistant Mike McQueary, whose account of a sexual encounter between Sandusky and a boy of about 10 ultimately led to the Paterno’s dismissal and the university president’s ouster. Sandusky did not take the stand in his own defense. After the verdict was announced, defense attorney Karl Rominger said it was “a tough case” with a lot of charges and that an appeal was certain. He said the defense team didn’t “have a lot of time to prepare.” Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly thanked the accusers who testified, calling them “brave men.” She said she hoped the verdict “helps these victims heal … and helps other victims of abuse to come forward.” Sandusky had repeatedly denied the allegations, and his defense suggested that his accusers had a financial motive to make up stories, years after the fact. His attorney also painted Sandusky as the victim of overzealous police investigators who coached the alleged victims into giving accusatory statements. But jurors believed the testimony that, in the words of lead prosecutor Joseph McGettigan III, Sandusky was a “predatory

The jury’s verdict came about 10 p.m. Friday, and the jury convicted Jerry Sandusky on all counts of victim Nos. 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10. He was found not guilty of the most serious charge, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse of victim 2, and a count of indecent assault against victim 5 and victim 6.

pedophile.” One accuser testified that Sandusky molested him in the locker-room showers and in hotels while trying to ensure his silence with gifts and trips to bowl games. He also said Sandusky had sent him “creepy love letters.” Another spoke of forced oral sex and instances of rape in the basement of Sandusky’s home, including abuse that left him bleeding. He said he once tried to scream for help, knowing that Sandusky’s wife was upstairs, but figured the basement must be soundproof. Another, a foster child, said Sandusky warned that he would never see his family again if he told anyone what happened. And hours after the case went to jurors, lawyers for one of Sandusky’s six adopted children, Matt, said he had told authorities that his father abused him. Matt Sandusky had been prepared to testify on behalf of prosecutors, the statement said. Defense witnesses, including Jerry Sandusky’s wife, Dottie, described his philanthropic work with children over the years, and many spoke in positive terms about his reputation in the community.

Sophisticated ride

in the mountains.” “We’ll go back when it’s time,” Bill Smith said. County Road 74E, also known as Red Feather Lakes Road, was closed just west of U.S. 287 to the Boy Scout Ranch Road. The new evacuations prompted the American Red Cross to set up a shelter at the Cache La Poudre Middle School in Laporte, where residents streamed in Friday evening. The cars and trucks of evacuees also overflowed from the parking lot of the Forks store and grill in Livermore, a gathering place on the fire’s northern perimeter. Children played in the dry beige grass nearby, and the wind caused a loud, steady clanging on the post-office flagpole. “It just goes on and on,” Marla Jones, a two-time evacuee, said as she sat on the tailgate of her loaded pickup, cupping a hand above her brow to watch the towering column of black and white smoke a few miles to the

southwest. “I know it’s only really been two weeks, but it’s starting to feel like we won’t ever get back to normal. … I guess everyone who has ever been through a long fire feels like that.” More than 1,800 firefighters are fighting the blaze, according to the fire-incident command website. Hahnenberg said officials planned to deploy five large helicopters and four to five big air tankers to drop water and retardant on the blaze Saturday. He also expected to be getting more bulldozers to help build fire line. But Smith said there’s only so much firefighters can accomplish when the weather works against them. “As was proven today, this thing still has a heck of a lot of potential,” he said.

Evacuee Marlene Smith enters her car at the corner of U.S. 287 and Red Feather Lakes Road as Rodger Zorko makes a phone call while watching a column of smoke from the High Park fire. Larimer County officials sent out 998 new evacuation notices Friday as a spot fire north of the blaze raged out of control. Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post

Staff writers John Ingold and Kieran Nicholson contributed to this report.

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Perspective: Are Colorado forests just tinder? »1D

Emerging star John Orozco’s selfless acts win him some fans. » 1C

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Voice of the Rocky Mountain Empire

sun and wind E101° F64° »11B B JUNE 24, 2012 B denverpost.com B © the denver post B $1.50 price may vary outside metro denver

2012 Voter Guide: Check out candidate Q&As, build your own ballot and more. »denverpost.com/politics

NATION & WORLD

SANDUSKY’S LAWYERS RAISE ARGUMENT

When the national soccer team led by Brandi Chastain won the World Cup in 1999, the victory demonstrated the impact of legislation designed to put women’s sports on equal footing —

a legacy that continues to benefit today’s athletes.

The attorneys for the former Penn State assistant coach convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse tried to quit, saying there wasn’t enough time to prepare. »2A

ARTS & CULTURE

FIRES AC ROSS COLORADO

Blazes, temps stoke fears Eight wildfires on the year’s hottest day wreak havoc around the state. By Jeremy P. Meyer The Denver Post

PAPER WORK Some fawning is in order over the original version of the state constitution that went on display at the History Colorado Center last week. »1E

TRAVEL

JACKSON HOLE HAS WHOLE LOT IN THE HILLS From world-class skiing, hiking and mountain biking to night life and hotels, Jackson Hole is defined by its mountains.»10E

DENVER & THE WEST

A LOOK BACK ON POLICE CHIEF’S FIRST 6 MONTHS Police Chief Robert White F arrived in Denver six months ago with a mandate from the mayor to change a department roiled by charges of police brutality. How has White done? »1B

TITLE

As the groundbreaking Title IX legislation celebrated its 40th birthday Saturday, it brought with it a generation of American women who never knew a time before athletic opportunities were plentiful at their grade schools and colleges. Passed by Congress as part of a federal education law in 1972, Title IX bans gender-based discrimination in any institution that receives federal money. Although Title IX also covers sexual harassment, workplace laws regarding students and equal opportunities in other areas of education, it is most associated with sports by requiring that girls and women have equal access to sports teams, equal treatment in those sports and equal financial assistance. Even after four decades, the law remains controversial and misunderstood. Yet when it comes to sports, the results are obvious. In 1971-72, the year before the law passed, 294,015 girls participated in high school sports in the United States, compared with 3.6 million boys, and opportunities were limited to sports such as tennis, gymnastics, and track and field, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. In 2010-11, there were 3.1 million girls competing in high school sports, including 56,286 girls in Colorado participating in more than 15 sports.

“I would have never went to CSU if it hadn’t been for Title IX.” Jennifer Buford would take Major League Baseball cards, cut out the faces of the players and replace them with pictures of herself. “I had always had that dream of being able to play at that level,” Buford said.

She didn’t need to dream long before she found herself playing professionally. A Colorado State University softball star from 1994-98, Buford, now 35, went on to play with the Carolina Diamonds and Florida Wahoos of the Women’s Professional Softball League. (The league folded in 2001.)

At the time, for Buford and others in the league, simply getting paid to play the game was new to them. “For most female athletes, it wasn’t like you play sports for the money, by any means, or the opportunity for money in the future,” said Buford, who played in the league from 1998 to 2000.

FIRES » 10A

Fire updates. Keep track of the latest on the state’s blazes. »denverpost.com

DEPORTATION DEFERMENT

By Lindsay H. Jones The Denver Post

By Ros Dumlao The Denver Post

On the hottest day of the year so far, wildfires erupted throughout Colorado on Saturday, producing fast-moving fires that burned down homes in Estes Park, forced evacuations in Colorado Springs and shut down state highways in southern Colorado. Firefighting officials are girding for more of the same as a hot and dry weather pattern likely won’t lift until midweek. A jetliner full of firefighters has been summoned to the Western Slope, where buses will take them throughout the state; firefighting planes and helicopters are being positioned around Colorado to be ready to strike; and fire managers are set for a tough battle over the next few days.

SPORTS » 20A

Obama plan brings hope, skepticism By Allison Sherry The Denver Post

washington» Federal officials have 60 days to prepare for an onslaught of young illegal immigrants eager to apply for “deferred” deportation and work permits under the recently announced Obama administration directive that could affect up to 800,000 people living in the U.S. Federal discretion on deportation has been allowed before with certain groups of immigrants, such as those too sick to travel or those with bad home-country conditions. But this new wave of potentially eligible people could number in the tens of thousands in Colorado alone and will be bigger than immigration offices have seen before. POLICY » 15A

Criteria. A checklist of the conditions that will keep young people from being deported. »15A

10A» NEWS

sunday, june 24, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post

FIRES ACROSS COLORADO | “THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG SUMMER”

A slurry bomber drops fire retardant on a blaze near Colorado Springs on Saturday. The Waldo Canyon fire, which started earlier in the day, was one of at least eight fires burning across Colorado on Saturday. Christian Murdock, The Gazette

C OLO R A DO SPRING S

“Much too close for comfort”

Denver

WEBER fire

550

DURANGO 491

WALDO CANYON fire

285

LITTLE SAND fire

DENVER

TREASURE fire

At least eight fires were burning across Colorado Saturday, putting heavy demands on firefighting resources.

For the west side of Colorado Springs and into the Ute Pass area, wildfire danger became a sudden reality Saturday afternoon when the Waldo Canyon fire flared up around noon. In the foothills neighborhood of Pyramid Mountain Estates, the smoke and flames looked like the end of the world. “I’m really darn scared and really sad. We built this house 18 years ago,” said Dianna Wagner, helpless as the flames crept over a nearby ridge and ever closer to her home. Fire crews were cutting trees around her land while her family was taking photos of the valuables they couldn’t get out. By late Saturday afternoon, mandatory evacuation orders were given. So it went for residents in the fire’s path, from the neighborhoods north of U.S. 24 in Cascade to the west side of Colorado Springs. The fire spread into a dangerous threat so quickly that Saturday-afternoon plans were abruptly canceled as residents hosed down houses and packed their things. “We’ve got a dog loose, and we don’t know where it is,” said Martha Gallagher, who lives in the same area. The fire, she said, is “much too close for comfort.” “As soon as it’s mandatory,” said her husband, Jim, “I’m out of here.”

WOODLAND HEIGHTS fire

Busy fire day

By R. Scott Rappold and Jakob Rodgers The Gazette

FORT COLLINS

Detail area 25

GRAND JUNCTION

Estes Park blaze burns 21 homes

HIGH PARK fire

COLORADO

SPRINGER fire 50

COLORADO SPRINGS

PUEBLO

ALAMOSA

160 160

STATELINE fire

The Denver Post

By Jordan Steffen and Kirk Mitchell The Denver Post

Flames spread quickly through a southwest Estes Park neighborhood Saturday, burning at least 21 structures and stranding tourists. The Woodland Heights fire started with a cabin on Columbine Drive and spread rapidly, although the fast-moving blaze was hit quickly from the air and the ground. A large fixedwing tanker plane and two helicopters from the High Park fire, northwest of Fort Collins, were sent to Estes Park. The tanker was not used. By Saturday evening, the fire was in “mop-up” stage, Estes Park Fire Chief Scott Dorman said. Engines were to stay on the fire overnight. “Even though we lost 21 (structures), which is a huge tragedy, we saved many homes because of firefighters’ efforts,” Dorman told a meeting of evacuees earlier. Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith said the routine of briefing a crowd has become all too familiar over the past 2½ weeks. He paused to compose himself as he spoke. “It’s a tough time to go through,” he said. “I hate to see another name on the list.” The cause of the fire has not

been confirmed. Officials are investigating whether the blaze started in a home and spread or started as a wildfire and moved toward the homes. Jim Lind of Tulsa, Okla., was staying at the nearby YMCA of the Rockies with his family and feared what he was seeing in the distance. “The black-smoke clouds are covering the whole northeastern horizon,” he said. “It’s very unnerving.” YMCA officials said the fire was about 5 miles from the camp property and blowing northeast, away from the camp. Carolyn Baty and her husband, Darrell, vacationing from Fort Worth, Texas, were evacuated from the Riverwood Cabins around 1 p.m. “I smelled smoke coming from both directions, and then I heard the knock on the door,” Darrell Baty said. “We’re going to wait three or four hours to see if we get the ‘all clear.’ If not, we’ll probably head back to Texas.” The fire started less than a block from Sharon Day’s home on Columbine Drive, she said. While Day had not been given official notice, she said her home had been destroyed in the blaze. “I can’t put this into words,” she said. “We’ve lost everything.”

FIRES «FROM 1A “We are preparing for the worst while hoping for the best,” said Steve Segin of the Rocky Mountain fire-incident team. “We just have to hope Mother Nature gives us a break.” Relative-humidity levels were near zero Saturday, drying trees and grasses to tinderboxlike conditions. High temperatures hovered above 100 degrees. And even the slightest wind could blow a spark into a raging fire. Fire managers use the “Haines Index” that takes into account temperatures and moisture content to determine the fire potential on a scale of 1 to 6, with 6 being the worst possible conditions for large fire growth. Saturday was a “super 6.” Today is expected to be the same, Segin said. “We have got a couple of critical fire days ahead,” he said. “It is going to be very active. We haven’t had a fire season this bad since certainly 2002.” Eight large fires were burning in Colorado on Saturday, including the High Park fire in Larimer County that grew to 81,190 acres after a flare-up Friday. In Colorado Springs, a fire that started in the popular Waldo Canyon hiking area quickly grew to 2,000 acres. Police went doorto-door and drove through neighborhoods using loudspeakers in forced evacuations. “All west-side residents need to be ready for evacuation,” Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach told The Gazette. “This is serious.” As a huge column of smoke rose over western Colorado Springs, The Gazette reported deer and other animals running through neighborhoods to flee the fire. As many as 2,300 residents have been evacuated. Farther north, an Estes Park cabin caught fire near the Beaver Meadows entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park just after noon. Within a few hours, the fire had destroyed 21 structures. “Today put things on a whole new level,” said Lois Ivey, who was visiting from Florida and had been watching the High Park fire events over the past week. “It hit home when it burned a residential area. It’s very tense.” Helicopters that had been fighting the High Park fire jumped over to Estes Park for initial attack. In southern Colorado, officials said the Weber fire spread rapidly, growing to about 6,000 acres, and was backing down a hill toward the town of Mancos. Near Durango, firefighters battled the Stateline fire as gusty winds from a nearby thunderstorm in Farmington, N.M., fanned flames. “You can sit by and do nothing, but that’s not our nature,” Segin said. “We just have to hope that moisture will come.” Firefighters work to extinguish hot spots in burnedout structures Saturday near the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. The fastmoving fire was in “mop-up” stage by evening, officials said. Matthew Jonas,

Facing high winds at the Woodland Heights fire in Estes Park, firefighters try to keep a structure blaze out of nearby trees in the High Drive neighborhood. Walter Hester, Estes Park

Longmont Times-Call

Trail Gazette

High Park fire grows to 81,190 acres; red-flag warning noon-10 p.m. today Detail area

Burn area as of: June 9 Friday

Denver

Saturday High Park total burn area:

Red Feather Lakes Rd.

COLORADO

81,190 acres

(as of Sat. 7 p.m.) 287

2 Rd. nty Cou

Stevens Gulch

Ris t C anyon Rd .

Rd. ers w o l Old F

TED’S PLACE

BELLVUE

Pingree Park Rd.

e ds

Fire caused by lightning

Source: Larimer County

ton

rn Rd.

yon an

2 miles

Buckho

Horsetooth Reservoir

The Denver Post

By Kirk Mitchell and Erin Udell The Denver Post

Hot, dry winds expanded the High Park fire again Saturday, pushing the total acres burned in what is now the second-largest blaze in state history to 81,190. A spot fire in Glacier View Meadows that was ignited Friday by wind-blown embers from the main blaze is estimated at 10,000 acres. At least 10 homes were burned as it made its run from the area of Poudre Canyon known as the Narrows northwest across 15.6 square miles toward the area charred last month by the Hewlett fire.

At a Saturday-morning media briefing, fire-incident commander Bill Hahnenberg said Poudre Canyon “has been a really problematic area for us.” Swirling winds kept aircraft from flying over the fire at times. Firefighters were sometimes held back by 200-foot-high flames, he said. “Even with six really good crews, sometimes you just can’t keep up,” Hahnenberg said, noting that firefighters still saved several homes. Some helicopters were diverted to fight the Woodland Heights fire in Estes Park. Even so, fire-incident spokeswoman Reid Armstrong said Saturday

evening that good progress was made. Bulldozers carved a line on the north side of the Glacier View Meadows spot fire. Crews also made progress on stillburning interior islands, especially in Rist Canyon. They did burnouts in Poudre Canyon to move the fire back down the mountain, Armstrong said. But the fight will be tough again today. A red-flag warning has been issued for between noon and 10 p.m. “Which means high temperatures and low humidity, and winds of some significance,” Armstrong said. The official number of homes burned remains at 191. The cost

of the fire has risen to $27.6 million, and Armstrong said about 310,000 person-hours have been spent fighting the High Park fire. Thousands of people remain evacuated. Twice evacuated from Poudre Park, Mary Montanye said she has grown a little numb after two weeks of being displaced. She said she is grateful for firefighters who have saved her house three times since the fire began. “They did a great job, but we still have a lot of unburned fuel on the property,” she said. “This is going to be a long summer, and we could lose our home. It could happen.”