Color that you can see from the air

Bright orange red color.

Years ago, in the wreckage of the Black Forest Fire, I encountered a encouraging point of light,  offering hope and the possibility of renewal, in an otherwise dismal landscape.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Out there among the charred tree trunks, wreckage, incinerated dreams, ash-strewn memories, dust, and heartbreaking despair — I noticed some color.
Bright orange red color.
Ben Robinett, with his green jeans stained black, from days sifting around in the ash of what used be his home, the owner of that color had been looking for his car keys.
He waved us over when we noticed the bright spot, during a media tour Friday, June 21.
Black everywhere, but here, more than little bit of bright orange red.
Robinett, a Fort Carson firefighter by trade, says it is color, he has been told, that you can see from the air.
The color takes the form of a 1968 Ford Galaxy.
"I have had it for about a year and a half. Worked on it constantly. My dad was an auto mechanic, and I love to work on it for old times sake. Painted it (even inside the engine compartment, ) shined it up. It was about three quarters done. I know all about it. I was the fourth owner."
And that bright orange red was for a reason.
"We called it 'Birdy.' I am a big St. Louis Cardinals fan."
Robinett was off shift when he learned the fire was burning and he and his family needed to evacuate.
"Needed to get my six-year-old out of here. I had a trailer right over there and thought I might need it for a place to stay, and my 16-year-old drove her car out."
So, it was bye-bye Birdy, he thought.
He had to leave it in the forest, in the minimal protection of the little hut.
He expected to lose everything he had left behind.
But today he is talking with the tow company, and despite looking through what are now the ashes of his house, he hasn't found his car keys. It melted the gun safes, everything.
The cover of the building is gone. And there is a little blistering of the paint on the passenger-side flank of the Galaxy. The five-gallon buckets nearby, are melted through. All-in-all however, good shape. The paint is burnt off the license plate in back, but hardly any damage to the car itself.
What a wonderful spot of color she is? Bright Orange Red.
Cardinal Color. A bright spot, among the shades of gray and black.
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