(BLACK FOREST, Colo.) — More than 100 agencies from across the nation supported the Black Forest Fire. For local first responders, it felt like déjà vu, as many of them had just fought the Waldo Canyon Fire the year before.
One of those first responders even used the devastation as inspiration to further his career in firefighting.
“I saw the plume of smoke and I immediately had that sinking feeling of dread like, this is going to be a big one,” said Cody Poole, who was an EMT at the time.
“I just kept thinking, it can’t happen again. There’s no way,” said former El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa.
“At Black Forest, it’s like we had done this before. It was like how we trained so we could do the tactics that we had practiced,” said Justin White.
June 11, 2013 was a day off for then-Colorado Springs Fire Captain, now Battalion Chief Justin White.
“So I didn’t get to the Black Forest fire until the second day,” said White.
“I was an EMT Here. I was brand new,” Poole said. “I had gone through my academy that ended in early 2013, and the fire started in the summer of 2013.”
Little did hometown boy, Poole know, he was about to get a real trial by fire.
“Without having firefighting certifications, I was placed in more of a logistics supporting role than anything else. But that sinking feeling was definitely ever present throughout, especially in the beginning stages,” said Poole.
For Captain White, it was déjà vu.
“We talk about career fires or career incidents. You know, you’re supposed to have one of those a career. And so we had two back to back career fires,” said White.
Maketa said he was balancing his day job and a natural disaster.
“Crimes are still happening. We’re still patrolling the streets. But now we have this massive crime scene. It was like a firestorm rolling across the top of everything, but it literally incinerated everything under it,” said Maketa.
Resources were on the ground with help from above. The Mountain Post supplied helicopters, and the Colorado Army National Guard used the Air Force Academy’s airfield for refueling operations.
“I’ll never forget the roaring and the sound of it,” said White. “And almost like the treetops were exploding when they ignite. There was this this, this urgency to account for people, to evacuate people.”
“Firefighting efforts, as valiant as they were, were just not as effective against such a large fire,” said Poole.
Once the dust settled came the familiar dread of the devastation left behind.
“You still had the smoke and the haze,” Maketa said. “It was just the grayness of everything. It was almost black and white and almost not real.”
“It seemed surreal because you’re not used to that kind of devastation when you respond on a call. You’re used to smaller scale incidents. You’re used to coming and being successful in almost an immediate fashion,” said White.
Now a decade later, and the once-newbie EMT was inspired by heartbreak in his hometown, and is now a member of Black Forest Fire Rescue.
“I had the goal of becoming a firefighter, absolutely,” Poole said. “But after the Black Forest fire, I took a particular interest in Fire Wise.”
Poole took it upon himself to become the Fire Wise Coordinator, working with the community he’s loved for the past 35 years to educate and mitigate a community he says is forever changed.
“There’s sort of two Black Forests. There’s pre-fire Black Forest, and then there’s after-fire Black Forest. So that dreadful feeling of change and a loss of a way of life and a perspective that would never return,” said Poole.
