Fires of hell burning south of here

 Patty Hearst Not At Crystola

A mysterious telephone call early Tuesday morning temporarily put the Teller County Sheriff''s Department into kidnap/fugitive investigation and search for missing California newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

Undersheriff Robert Allen said a Colorado State Patrol radio dispatcher in Colorado Springs received a call after 1 a.m. from a man identifying himself only as "Chuck."The caller said he was "heavily armed" and he had Miss Hearst "cornered" inside a cabin at Crystola near the Teller-El Paso county line.

The patrol dispatcher relayed the information to the Sheriff's Substation office in Woodland Park. Deputy Royce Dean, with assistance from the Woodland Park Police Department, then went to Crystola to investigate the report.

Dean was able to determine the armed and inebriated caller had mistaken a motel tenant, who somewhat resembled descriptions and photographs of the missing heiress , had been living at the Crystola cabin since early April.

__ Courier, Thursday, May 23. 1974 -Page 3

Certain things "capture" you, over time and distance

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

For most of my life, certain news stories have seemed to reach out, grab me by the collar, and shake me for attention. Not surprising, I guess — as I spent an inordinate amount of time in the business. But it seems weird how certain things "capture" you, over time and distance. Steve Plutt,  from the Pikes Peak area, sent me the preceding clip recently, when he noticed a blog story I wrote about — among other things— the unfolding saga of kidnap victim turned bank robber Patty Hearst and Sybionese Liberation Army.  The story tied all the way back to my childhood. And this was not the first time Steve was able to pluck seemingly unrelated snippets that turned "profound," when slipped into my own little history.

Waiting for the paper was a pretty regular thing for the folks on my paper route through that summer of 1974, as President Nixon faced possible impeachment and eventually resigned in early August. Among other events, there was the Dixie County sighting of a Florida Skunk Ape in July that year. It really wasn’t what you would call a slow news period.

But the Patty Hearst story was compelling.
“Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people,” was the slogan of the SLA and a seven-headed cobra snake its symbol. The members of the army were known on occasion to use cyanide-laced bullets.

Patty Hearst’s conversion from the straight-laced heiress of the Hearst newspaper fortune to a bank-robbing “fundraiser” renamed Tania, sporting automatic weapons at various robberies and car jackings with the terrorist group was a hot topic. In May, Patty (a.ka. Tania) fired a series of warning shots at a storeowner that was trying to detain SLA members, Bill And Emily Harris, when they were caught shoplifting in sporting goods store in Los Angles.

The next day, in a two-hour gun battle between the SLA and 500 Los Angeles police officers, where nine thousand rounds were fired, and six SLA “soldiers” were killed, the SLA sealed their international notoriety. Hearst was eventually arrested in 1975 and brought to trial in a sensational legal event, in which she was defended by superstar lawyer F. Lee Bailey.

Nesting in the weirdness of Steve's pass-along of the clip, was the relationship to big news happenings that  over time,  pushed around my life.  For years, on two separate stints, I was publisher of the Courier, and the account resurfaced crazy stories I had encountered at that operation with tangents and fragments my own history there.

It had a familiar ring, as it had been more than 20 years since members of “The Texas Seven,” a group of prisoners who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, on Dec. 13, 2000, and later killed Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins on Dec. 19, 2000, were arrested about a month later on a cold January Monday, right in Woodland Park. 

While I was considering that,  massive wild fires began destroying large portions of the Colorado cities of Superior and Louisville in Boulder County.  I was reminded of coverage of three successive "largest and most destructive fires in Colorado" I had covered, while at the Courier.  First the Hayman, then the Waldo Canyon, and then on to the Black Forest Fire. The trauma witnessed of all three was still a part me.

I also had reservations in Boulder, for New Year's Eve. 

Talking with survivors of Hayman and Waldo Canyon, and the Black Forest Fire, hearing about their experiences still brings back images in my mind of that weird pink, smoky glow on ridges above Woodland Park, and separately Manitou Springs. And then to the east of my one-time home in Gleneagle.

And now, the fires of hell burning over the ridges just south of here, in Boulder County.

Experience of fire

I wrote this a little less than a year ago, as we once again marked the anniversaries of three devastating fires I experienced in the Pikes Peak area. Drought conditions through much of the state and fires already realized on the Western Slope and elsewhere, indicates we might be in for a rough fire summer.  As always, I am grateful for those that answer the call and fight those fires on our behalf.

Thank you for answering the call

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Fighting fire is something I am familiar with. My dad fought them all of his life. My younger sister spent years battling them for the United States Forest Service. I mark various watershed events in my own life by the experience of fire.

All the time I was growing up in a small town in southwestern Colorado, a strange, faceless phone with no dialing mechanism hung right on my dad’s side of my parent’s bedroom. I think there might have been as many as eight of them (exactly alike) hanging in various locations (homes and businesses) around the small town of 800 residents.

All of them were the property of the local volunteer fire department.

Whether it be night or day, the loud, unremitting, urgent ring would sound continuously at the breakout of a fire -- until someone picked up and answered the call.

If the call was judged not to be a prank, or false alarm, then the lever on the black box next to the phone was shoved over, all the way to the right, and the fire siren down at the town hall would begin its mournful summons of the 25 or 30 volunteer firefighters in the area.

Later, of course, heavy, boxlike pagers were worn on volunteers’ belts and the siren (that also served as the noon whistle, because it was necessary to test each day), became obsolete. I am not sure what they use today in that town.

The volunteers serving on that department – all by choice – and all continuing to work their regular jobs or at businesses to pay the bills and feed their families, would drop everything when the siren wailed.

I considered that carefully this week, as we continued to evaluate how fortunate we are, and what a debt we owe, regarding firefighter’s response and effectiveness when called to serve. When everyone else is running out, they are unselfishly, and usually anonymously, running in.

Of course, this month we are marking the 15th anniversary of Hayman Fire, the fifth anniversary of the Waldo Fire and fourth anniversary of the Black Forest Fire, three of the most destructive fires in the history of Colorado.

I suppose we should be out lining the roads, making signs and remembering to mark the firefighters recent efforts, as well.

Wouldn’t it also be appropriate to also recall the locals, and on a regular basis, the efforts of people like Pineville Hot Shots Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso or Missoula smokejumper: Don Mackey, and McCall Smokejumpers: Roger Roth, Jim Thrash and Helitack Robert Browning, Jr., and Richard Tyler who all perished on Storm King Mountain in 1994?

Or perhaps Oregon wildland firefighters: Zach Zigich, Retah Shirley, Jacob Martindale, Danial Rama, and Bart Bailey who suffered the same fate, in the van crash near Parachute, as they were coming to help us out during Hayman?

After all, it might be night or day, and they may have to drop what they are doing to hear our urgent ring.

Much like that faceless phone of my youth, we might forget about them for the most part, and never remember their names, or what kind of sacrifices they may have to make.

A changed condition: Rampart Range Road offers a hard look at the fire

It is not the same forest

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

When Rampart Range Road opened Oct. 10, 2014, more than two years after it was closed during the first day of the Waldo Canyon Fire, visitors were able to get a whole new understanding of the scope the devastating wildfire.
“I really wanted to see first-hand – sorry I did, and yet at the same time, glad I know for a fact that in some areas – 10 years, most likely will not be enough of an estimated time for healing from flooding. Great to see beaming, white and good-smelling Aspen trees, a few yellow leaves and five feet away on the side of the road, a ‘war zone - a look alike’ of total devastation.” Said local long-time resident Clara Meury who toured the area in the first few days the road was open.
“Whew! Glad I went and saw and came down off the Ramparts...with hope. Very thankful to see acres, miles, and hillsides of hundreds of dedicated footprints of CUSP (Coalition for the Upper South Platte) volunteers back-breaking work that has been done, and more yet to happen to protect our towns, and cities. Our communities. Our mountains. I love our Mountains,” Meury said.
Rampart Range Road offers an elevated vantage point to view the extent of the damage.
The fire, which was first reported June 23, 2012, had caused the evacuation of over 32,000 residents of Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Cascade, Chipita Park, Green Mountain Falls, Crystola, Woodland Park and partial evacuation of the United States Air Force Academy. As many as 346 homes were destroyed by the fire. U.S. Highway 24, was closed in both directions for days. The Waldo Canyon Fire resulted in insurance claims totaling more than $453.7 million. Until the Black Forest Fire, it was the most destructive fire in Colorado state history, as measured by the number of homes destroyed, (Black Forest fire destroyed 486 homes and damaged 28 others).
“If you choose to go into the Waldo Canyon area, expect a changed condition. It is not the same forest that many remember prior to the 2012 wildfire. There are many dangers so be very cautious with a plan of escape when the winds increase or it starts to rain. Your safety is our priority,”said Pikes Peak District Ranger Oscar Martinez, upon the road’s opening.
Visitors should use extreme caution and expect to encounter falling dead trees and limbs, steep slopes, stump holes and the potential for flooding in this burned area.