Aerial Porters volunteer to help Black Forest neighbors

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Teresa Black
  • 39th Aerial Port Squadron
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. --  A group of Air Force Reservists from the 302nd Airlift Wing's 39th Aerial Port Squadron took the opportunity during their home station annual tour to help their neighbors in need.

On June 11, a wildfire broke out near Black Forest, Colo., a local Colorado Springs community approximately 15 miles north of Peterson AFB. Fanned by high winds and fueled by severe dry conditions, the fire burned for nine days and consumed more than 14,000 acres before full containment was achieved. In the first three days of the blaze, nearly 500 structures were destroyed and 37 more were damaged. Many homeowners were not able to return to their homes or their home sites due to heavy smoke damage and debris removal, which must occur before they could move forward with rebuilding.

On July 27, at the close of the first week of their training tour, five members of the squadron decided to spend their day off volunteering with a not-for-profit disaster recovery team. A team from the national organization was in the area assisting homeowners who needed help after June's Black Forest fires.

The group from the 39th APS thought this would be a great team-building opportunity, especially since so many Air Force members were affected by the fire, including their own Master Sgt. Dan Douglas, an APS journeyman. Douglas lives in the area, but his property survived the disaster unscathed. To help his neighbors who hadn't been quite so fortunate, Douglas organized the APS group, that also included Senior Airman Theresa Ducharme, Senior Master Sgt. Dave Gilman, Tech. Sgt. Andy Acosta and Senior Airman Teresa Black, all Colorado residents.

The crew was assigned to assist two homeowners over the course of their day. The first was the primary residence of Willy and Judy Scott. The Scotts' home was spared by the inferno, but it destroyed two out buildings and other items on the property.

"I was struck by the fact that there was nothing left in the barn," said Acosta. "You could tell there used to be some sort of vehicle sitting in that spot," he gestured to the blackened earth where the barn once stood "because of the four piles of metal cords where the tires burned." There was absolutely nothing left of the car itself but hardened puddles of melted metal and glass.

After two hours of work, the team, along with about 15 other volunteers, had cleaned up the area where the barn and garage once stood.

"It's amazing," Willy Scott said as he surveyed the work site, with his hands on his hips. "My daughter and I worked on this for two hours the other day and barely cleared away a four-foot section. You folks cleaned up both buildings in the same amount of time!"

As the crews worked, they used garbage cans and large sifters to screen every shovel-full of debris they removed. It was dirty and dangerous work.

"Be careful, watch your step," was the mantra of the day as volunteers worked their way through pile with rusty nails, jagged metal flashing and broken glass.

The items in the barn were expected to be a total loss, and workers found only a bridal and bit - both were too damaged to salvage. Work clearing the concrete pad where the garage once stood went far slower. Scott had indicated that there were many sentimental items stored in that building, the bulk of which had been the belongings of his late aunt, and he was really hoping to recover something there.

In the end, there were a few figurines, Christmas ornaments and hand-made crafts that were found intact. However, the find of the day was an unassuming, charred metal box that floated up out of a scoop of debris in the sifters.

"That's a jewelry box!" one volunteer shouted. Suddenly work stopped at the site as everyone gravitated toward the treasure. Scott came over and gently took the box. All eyes were on him, and the only sound was the distant buzzing of chainsaws at work somewhere in the forest, as he opened it. Inside was, indeed, a ring. Scott removed it from the box, and turned it slowly in the sunlight.

"This is my son-in-law's Air Force Academy ring!" Scott proclaimed. "Of all the things to survive the fire." Although it showed some signs of having been through a fire - the metal was dulled and the stone covered in soot - the emblems and year, 1994, were all clearly intact.

"It's strange how that ring made it, and a car was melted to nothing," remarked Gilman, as the crew went back to work, sifting rubble in hopes of finding something else to brighten the Scotts' day.

The volunteers finished their work without another big discovery, but as they gathered in a circle for a last word from the homeowner, Scott gave them a parting gift, the gift of thanks. In a very emotional moment, he shared the sentiments of his family, who joined him in the circle. They thanked the group for coming out to help their fellow man, and for the care with which they went about the task of trying to find anything left after the destruction.

Walking away, on their way to the next worksite, the team from the 39th APS agreed that the experience had given them as much as it gave the Scott family.

"We usually try to work in the community when we are away from home station," said Gilman, special handling superintendent for 39th APS and who works as patrol sergeant for the Colorado Springs Police Department as his full time civilian job. "So while we were volunteering here, it felt a lot different because we were able to have an impact on our community. It felt good to give back to someone who could be your neighbor, someone who you might see at the grocery store."

Officials from the volunteer organization said that they had been on site for five weeks already, matching up volunteers with homeowners in need of labor to clear the debris from their land, cut down trees and assist with clean up. The organization planned to spend a total of about six weeks in the area, and stated that the calls from those affected by the fires were starting to taper off. All told, the volunteer organization coordinated more than 2,300 volunteers at approximately 100 worksites and contributed more than 25,000 hours of free assistance to the recovery effort.

"This year annual tour was different, absolutely. We are a big unit and you may not get to know everybody over a Reserve weekend," said Gilman. "But when you are sifting through a homeowner's belongings together for an eight-hour shift, you get to know someone. It felt great to be able to help as a team."