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| In the Wake of Devastation, Volunteers Bring Relief to Colorado Springs September 2012
Hundreds of firefighters battled the Waldo Canyon fire, as it crept—and then roared—toward neighborhoods in Colorado Springs in June. The blaze ultimately burned more than 18,000 acres, destroyed 350 homes, and killed two residents. MITRE's third-largest campus is in Colorado Springs. Employees quickly set up support services for their co-workers—opening their homes to evacuated families, offering help in placing pets, and transporting horses. "The support we got from the company was very nice," said Spurgeon T. Norman, Colorado Springs site manager. "Everybody from across MITRE—from HR and communications to the officers themselves, showed concern and a willingness to provide anything our employees needed." The fires affected between 25 and 30 MITRE families. One employee lost his home. MITRE also granted administrative and civic-time hours to employees who volunteered with relief services. Among them were Lynn Van Sickler, a lead sensor engineer, and Jarret Rush, an information systems principal engineer. Van Sickler worked with a team that ensured firefighters had food, water, and a safe place to retreat between shifts on the fire lines. Rush, a licensed ham radio operator, set up communications support at Red Cross shelters and Salvation Army canteens. Supporting the Firefighters Since 2009, when her son became a firefighter, Van Sickler has volunteered with the Pikes Peak Firefighters Organization Rehab Unit, a division of the El Paso County Sheriff's Department. "This year had been kind of a slow season for us," she said, noting that prolonged drought and high temperatures combined to provide perfect conditions for forest fires. Yet, the rehab unit wasn't called out—until Saturday, June 23. "Everyone knows where they were when the Waldo Canyon fire broke out," she says. Van Sickler and her husband were driving toward western Colorado Springs to take her parents out for a picnic lunch. They had just walked out of a supermarket when she spotted the plume of smoke—brown, blue and glowing orange—billowing from the other side of the mountain. "It was ghastly," she recalls. "It was so unusual that I knew something was going on." About 10 minutes later, her pager went off. The rehab team set up first near the trailhead where the fire originated, but soon the wind was blowing the flames directly at them. They evacuated, setting up several miles away in a supermarket parking lot. Van Sickler and the other volunteers spent the next two days working around the clock to provide relief to firefighters coming out of the canyon. She estimates they made more than 2,000 sack lunches for the firefighters who couldn't get out of the region. By Sunday, a national team arrived to assist with firefighting, bringing its own relief team. Van Sickler went to work on Monday and Tuesday. She was driving to a baseball game after work when her pager sounded again. Winds estimated at 65 mph had pushed the flames over the ridge of Waldo Canyon and toward neighborhoods overlooking Colorado Springs from the west. Van Sickler and her fellow volunteers returned to work, supplementing the national team. Within minutes of set-up, busloads of firefighters began rolling in from the fire scene. "They got off the buses, and a lot of them were crying," she says. "The fire had come over the hill and gotten so hot up there that the fire manager called all the firefighters back. Thank goodness, everyone got out alive. But there was a lot of dismay and sorrow, and I now realize it was because they felt bad they'd lost all those homes." Radios to the Rescue Meanwhile, as residents evacuated to community shelters, cell phone traffic overwhelmed the system. Up in the mountains, some cell towers burned. Others were turned off to protect them from the flames. Rush and volunteers from the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) provided key support early in the fire, as relief agencies worked to unite families that had become separated and to find temporary homes for animals too large for the shelters to accept. "I worked in three different shelters, did site surveys, and set up antennas, radios, and power to establish operating locations," he says. Rush also helped open a new shelter on Tuesday when the fire roared into residential neighborhoods. In all, he spent about 67 hours on duty. Would he do it again? "Absolutely. I took leave time to do this, and then someone told me that he'd put in a request for civic time to cover the hours. I didn't have any expectation that I'd get the time back. While my MITRE work is important, I find there is huge personal satisfaction in being able to apply my communications and technical skills to support the community where I live and work." Van Sickler says she appreciates the support she got from MITRE during her absence, too. "I missed a couple of significant meetings. But they said ‘just go do what you have to do and don't worry about us.' I was proud to do it." —by Molly Manchenton
Page last updated: September 6, 2012 | Top of page |
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