Western side of Colorado Springs is now burning.

[kbohip]

The fire here got out of control today with strong winds and high temps. The fire is now heading down the western foothills in numerous spots and starting to burn the huge homes in the foothills. They have even started mandatory evacuation of the Air Force Academy! My drive home tonight was almost out of a disaster movie. Police and fire engines, ambulances driving down the wrong side of the road because 12,000 people had to evacuate their homes on the west side of town all of a sudden and clogged all eastern routes. I have some amazing pictures that I'm going to put up as soon as I can find a decent host.

I have also lost all cell phone service as people are all trying to reach relatives.

[Keven]

Hope you and the family stay safe, Bill.

[kbohip]

This is crazy! I never thought I'd see any fire make it into the city limits. I've got ash all over my car, and the smoke is awful. Thank God I've got A/C at the house!

[kbohip]

32,000 people have now been evacuated from the northwest side of town.

[kbohip]

The first 4 pictures are from Sunday from the deck of my mom's house. The last 2 are from tonight looking west across town. The smoke at the time was blowing from west to east. Man, I need a drink! Oh and btw, the little red dot on the last pic at the right is the sun.

[Invictus]

A friend of mine who lives in Colorado springs just sms me these pics.

[kbohip]

Hot and windy today already. More dry thunderstorms predicted so this could get really bad all over again if the winds all of a sudden hit 65mph like they did yesterday.

[smoked trout]

How's everyone holding up? Stay safe. Hopefully the winds calm down for you.

Hope your Mom's house is OK too.

[Frank1946]

The local news just reported they've evacuated the Air Force Academy!

[kbohip]

A Denver fire chief who's unit was down here Tuesday to help fight the huge urban fire on the west side said that over 300 homes burned! The pictures they took of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood look apocalyptic. To think my wife and I almost moved there 10 years ago. As for my mom? She got extremely lucky. Had the winds pushed that fire south instead of north, it could've burned everything all the way down to Cheyenne Mountain.

Driving over to the west side today from the east, it was the first day I coudn't see hardly any fires burning on the front range. I have no idea what's going in the mountains behind them though. Still, today has been the most smoke free day here since Saturday.

[kbohip]

FBI now investigating cause of Waldo Canyon fire.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/06/28...est=latestnews

[kbohip]

Before and after pictures of what the fire burned.

http://www.denverpost.com/wildfires/...chuckwagonroad

[kbohip]

Looks like 346 homes were lost. I'll say one thing right now, it's something I thought would never happen in Colorado Springs in my lifetime at least.

[Frank1946]

Before and after pictures of what the fire burned.

http://www.denverpost.com/wildfires/...chuckwagonroad

And that neighborhood wasn't exactly a trailer park.

[smoked trout]

Interesting time lapse

5 day time lapse of Waldo Canyon Fire