‘Hell in the Rearview Mirror’ as Coloradoans Flee Wildfires
The latest news on the wildfire causing havoc in Colorado Springs, Colo., is that “the blaze was burning out of control early Thursday in the mountains and within Colorado’s second-largest city, after more than 30,000 evacuees frantically packed up belongings and fled,” The Associated Press reports.
But the story to read for how awful it is if your home is in the inferno’s path comes from reporter Bill Vogrin of The Gazette, Colorado Springs’ local newspaper. As the headline says, he saw “Hell In The Rearview Mirror.
Local coverage: From KUNC, “community radio for Northern Colorado.”
After he and his family grabbed what they could from their house on Tuesday, Vogrin writes, he managed to get away from the neighborhood as embers were falling on his home’s roof. Then, as he shares in this emotional passage:
“I sat in traffic. It’s a memory I’ll never forget. I teared up as I scanned the surrounding cars. Everywhere were children, scared and crying, their parents looking deathly afraid and, in my rearview mirror, a view of the gates of hell.”