The deadly Waldo Canyon fire appears to have started just off a hiking trail west of Colorado Springs, a location that firefighters searched unsuccessfully the day before the wind-fanned blaze exploded June 23.
Although El Paso County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Kramer said he was “not at liberty” to reveal the precise point of origin, coordinates posted on a federal fire-management website and dispatch recordings of conversations between firefighters indicate the fire started on a ridge along the popular Waldo Canyon hiking trail.
On Thursday, investigators said they had not determined how the fire began.
The fire was officially reported at about noon June 23 and went on to burn 18,247 acres, destroy 347 houses and kill Barbara Everett, 73, and William Everett, 74, in their home in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood.
The fire is 95 percent contained and has cost $14.5 million to fight.
The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office late Saturday night issued a news release confirming that a resident in Crystal Park reported seeing smoke in the hills north of Cave of the Winds at 7:49 p.m. June 22.
Firefighters from four agencies responded to investigate but disbanded the search at dusk. Firefighters returned the next morning.
“Could it be a campfire?” one firefighter asks on archived dispatch recordings from June 22.
Winds dispersing the smoke made it difficult to find the source.
“That’s a happy thought,” said another firefighter about the blustery weather.
The next day, as a large plume of smoke developed to the west of the city, firefighters scrambled to get in position to locate the fire — even attempting to ask the pilot of a plane flying over to help find the wildfire.
“This is the same place we had fire last night,” an unidentified firefighter from the Cascade Volunteer Fire Department is heard to say over the radio. “It is on a ridge trail.”
Another firefighter on the recorded conversation said he and a crew hiked the area on the morning of June 23 to find the source of the smoke reported the night before.
“We hiked around there for quite a while,” the unidentified firefighter said over the dispatch recording. “There was nothing at that time. But it looks like it was there.”
Reached on Thursday by The Denver Post, a member of the Cascade Fire Department refused to talk about the fire’s first days, saying he needed approval from the federal incident team before talking to media.
The National Weather Service in Pueblo said skies were clear and no thunderstorms were in the area June 22 and 23, making it unlikely that lightning struck the area.
Investigators have asked people who were in the Waldo Canyon area June 22 and 23 to call if they may have seen something that could help the investigation. Federal authorities are working together with local agencies on the investigation.
In pinpointing the origin of a wildfire, investigators interview eyewitnesses and the first-arriving firefighters for details on what they saw. But the most important questions are asked of the landscape, said Paul Steensland, who was one of the U.S. Forest Service’s top wildfire investigators before he retired.
Steensland, who investigated the Hayman fire among hundreds of others, now works as a consultant but said he had not been contacted on the Waldo Canyon fire.
Every fire develops its own personality as it grows, influenced by wind, terrain and fuel, Steensland said.
Pushed by wind, the fire’s head races forward, while the body spreads outward at an angle and the tail stretches slowly backward.
When investigators arrive near the origin site, they begin to read the clues that nod back toward the starting point.
The fire’s head burns hot and quickly, leaving no unburned grass in its path except for in little eddies behind rocks, while the flanks may have sprigs of dry but unburned grass lying in the burned area.
Step by step, investigators zigzag between the flanks as they funnel toward the origin site, Steensland said. When they get close — within feet — investigators may even be on their hands and knees, reading the baked-in tilt of the grass blades, something known as “foliage freeze.”
Once investigators find the “specific origin site,” Steens-land said, they look even closer.
“Sometimes, it’s really big and obvious like a campfire ring,” he said. “And sometimes, it’s really small like a match.”
The wildfire detectives might even run magnets over the ground, looking for flecks of metal.
Once they find what started the fire, investigators again turn their attention outward in an effort to find the culprit.
“At this point, it really does shift just to good old-fashioned detective work,” he said.
Steensland said fire-starters will sometimes leave behind evidence that links them to the fire scene — he recalls one such person who dropped his cellphone while leaving the area.
Firefighters are often trained to write down license-plate numbers or make note of people they see in the area when they arrive at a fire, Steensland said. Witnesses may come forward with evidence. The fire-starter may even admit to starting the blaze. And, if they don’t, investigators can often pull DNA off of some evidence, such as an arsonist’s ignition device.
“You’re going to use any and all tools in the toolbox to try to identify who is responsible,” Steensland said.
But, because wildfires often start in remote areas with few people watching, finding a culprit who doesn’t want to be found is often challenging.
“That’s why a fair number of these fires go unsolved,” Steensland said.
Jeremy P. Meyer: 303-954-1367, jpmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jpmeyerdpost