Story by Rick Padden/American Red Cross
A harrowing situation involving fireworks on the grandest of scales ended happily for a group of 26 scouts from Garden City, Kansas early Tuesday morning, as they escaped the Spring Fire in Southern Colorado and found safe haven at a Red Cross shelter in Walsenburg. It will be a memorable 4th of July for the group.
A Red Cross volunteer comforts a Scout at the evacuation shelter in Walsenburg. The scouts were evacuated in the wee hours Tuesday morning. Photo by Kate Walters/American Red Cross
It was around midnight that shelter workers first learned that their dormitory population would be increasing dramatically, and suddenly.
“When we heard they were coming,” said Red Cross Public Affairs volunteer Kate Walters, “we were just thrilled that we’d be able to provide a safe place for them to sleep and eat.”
The scouts, ranging in age from six to 20, had been camped for the past three weeks at the Spanish Peaks Boy Scout Ranch about 17 miles southeast of La Veta with eight adult leaders — and they thought they were well away from the fiery danger to the west. Then the monster Spring Fire took a turn.
“They could see the actual fire line then,” said Red Cross volunteer Julia Stamper, 40, of Fort Collins, “and knew it was time to leave.” Stamper said they arrived at the shelter safely, but had to evacuate on short notice — with their clothes, tents and backpacks left back at the camp.
Scouts held a flag ceremony at the evacuation shelter in Walsenburg. Photo by Kate Walters.
Shelter workers had expected an even larger group in the wee hours of the morning, but flexed for the occasion. A sheriff’s deputy came to the shelter around midnight with the news, according to shelter volunteer Pat Fahey.
“He said we’d have roughly 50 coming in, so we started pulling out cots from storage, and then volunteers brought more cots from our La Veta shelter.” The group of 34 arrived at the shelter around 1 a.m., Fahey said.
“It was pretty amazing,” Stamper added. “They’d been woken up at the camp and were tired, but all the kids chipped in helping with the cots and blankets. Then they all crashed and went back to sleep.”
Fahey, from Canon City, has only been with the Red Cross for a month and a half, but said he’s had plenty of experience with disasters. “I was in the National Guard for six years,” he said, “and been to both floods and fires. I’m used to taking people to the shelters, though, so it feels good to see it from the other side and see how they’re taken care of once they’re here.”
Levi Cole, 20, of Dodge City Kansas, passes the time at the Red Cross shelter in Walsenburg, CO, Tuesday afternoon, after being evacuated with fellow scouts from the Spring Fire area. Photo by Rick Padden/Red Cross.
” The icing on the cake for us was being able to assist them with their flag ceremony this morning when they got up,” said Walters. “They’d been used to daily flag ceremonies at the camp, and were about to miss their final one, which would have been a shame.” The scouts asked for a flag, and she was able to find one at the shelter (which is in the Huerfano County Community Center). “It was inspiring,” she said. “It brought tears to my eyes.
Julia Stamper is also no stranger to disasters. She said she and her husband were about to close on a house they were purchasing in Rist Canyon in 2012 when the High Park fire broke out. They’d already sold their own house, and had moved all their belongings to her in-laws house (also in Rist Canyon). The house they were purchasing was destroyed, but they were able to exit their contract, and Stamper’s in-laws’ house was not taken.
“But I ended up in a shelter myself, at the Budweiser Center outside of Loveland,” Stamper said.
Note: Scouts have been evacuated from the Spanish Peaks Scout Camp on 3 other occasions due to wildfires and flash flooding. Each time they were sheltered by the American red Cross until they could be transported home.