GREEN RIVER TUNNEL - 2025

Photo: Wyoming Highway Patrol

 

Photo: Wyoming Department of Transportation

Photo: Wyoming Department of Transportation

Photo: Wyoming Highway Patrol

Photo: Wyoming Department of Transportation

On Feb. 14, 2025, three people died in a fiery pile-up at Wyoming's Green River tunnel on Interstate 80.

The disaster involved two dozen autos and trucks near the town of Green River, about 270 miles west of Cheyenne. 

Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County treated 18 people.

It was sheer terror and flames "prevented some of the life saving measures," Highway Patrol Major James Thomas said.

"We could hear the screams,” said Green River fire officer Bill Robinson, quoted by Salt Lake City television station KUTV. "Our crews got ready and went in, trying to get to the people that were trapped. We saved as many as we could.”

Andrea Domhoff, who escaped the tunnel, told the Cowboy State Daily: “I ran my arms along the wall to get out. I couldn’t see anything … and then it was exploding every few minutes behind.”

Motorist David Brewer told the Daily: “We heard and felt the huge explosions. They went on for 30-45 minutes.”

Officials identified the dead as Christopher Johnson, 20, and Quentin Romero, 22, both of Rawlins, Wyoming, and Harmanjeet Singh, 30, a Canadian.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon said: "I am immensely grateful to the emergency responders who acted so quickly and without concern for their own personal safety to reach those in peril."

The four-lane tunnel is about 1,100 feet in length, according to Wikipedia.

Eastbound lanes of the tunnel reopened on Feb. 20.

DENO'S 6 & 85

Fire photos: Adams County Fire Rescue and Yelp

The site of one of Colorado's oldest truck stops - Deno's 6 & 85  in Commerce City - met a fiery end early on March 2, 2025.

Truckers knew it for its towering neon sign.

The South Adams County Fire Department, Adams County Fire Rescue and Platte Valley Ambulance responded.

Firefighters "encountered high heat, heavy fire and heavy smoke" upon arrival, South Adams Fire said in a social media post.
Deno's, which featured a restaurant and a bar, closed after seven decades and the old building was surrounded by a chain-link fence. The abandoned site near the Suncor Commerce City Refinery had fallen into disrepair. 

MILES CITY FLOOD - 1944

 

It was "bombs away" - we're talking the genuine articles - when the ice-jammed Yellowstone River flooded Miles City, Montana, in 1944. The governor of the state, Sam Ford, requested military assistance. An Army Air Corps B-17 "Flying Fortress" dropped 250-pound bombs on the river to shatter the jam.

CENTRAL BLOCK - 1953

On Aug. 29, 1953, flames toppled the Central Block in downtown Pueblo, Colorado, and destroyed the neighboring McCarthy Building.

O.G. Pope, 88, an attorney who had an office and apartment in the red sandstone block, was the sole fatality. 

As the masonry crumbled, "We started running fast. Don't know where, just fast," said C.C. Wood, a Pueblo fire captain. 

Speaking in a 1990 interview, retired Pueblo firefighter John Mikus said the blaze "was kind of a mixed-up affair. The chiefs weren’t there as they were all at a fire chiefs’ convention. There was a new crew at the Central Station. Since they were new, they shouldn’t have gone out – they didn’t know where everything was. They even hooked onto the wrong plug."

In an interview with the Pueblo Chieftain, photographer William "Bud" Hawkins, who snapped an award-winning photograph of a falling wall, recalled: ”It wasn’t even going good when I got there. I took a lot of pictures and thought it looked like a dry run but then it took off."

The Central Block housed the Cosmopolitan and Grand hotels, the Western Union telegraph office and a variety of businesses. It was erected in 1890. The McCarthy Building was built in 1891. The structures were located at First and Main streets. 

"The Central Block was pretty tall and it was built to burn: There were offices all around the outside edge and an oval thing (ground floor-to-roof rotunda) in the middle so you could walk around on all the floors and look down," Hawkins recalled. "That was like a flue.”

Writing in Fire Engineering in 2012, Ronald Spadafora, a New York City firefighter, noted "an atrium allows the builder to take advantage of available sunlight and provide enhanced ventilation" but "also provides a horizontal and vertical pathway for fire and the products of combustion."

Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Cross, who lived in an apartment in the Central Block, were awakened by the crackling of flames, The Rocky Mountain News said, and Mrs. Cross went to Mr. Pope’s apartment to warn him.

Pope told her “this fire doesn't amount to much” and went back to his bedroom, the News said. Shortly thereafter, a firefighter said he heard Pope screaming, but couldn't reach him.

After the fire was out, firefighters requested a steam shovel to comb the ruins for Pope's remains.

The blaze started shortly after 3 a.m. and spread to a paint store, setting off hundred of gallons of paint and other chemicals. 

A spectator described it as a "giant blowtorch."

Pueblo Fire Chief Ed Chief Colglazier praised police Patrolman Raymond Marshall for rousing tenants of the Grand Hotel and Assistant Fire Chief Charles DiPalma for doing the same at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, the News said.

HAUNTING - 2020

 

Photo: Cortez Fire Protection District
Flames devoured a two-story house undergoing renovation on Highway 160 south of Cortez, Colorado, on June 3, 2020. The chief of the Cortez Fire Protection District, Jay Balfour, told the Journal newspaper: "It was going pretty strong. We had to play defense and fight it from the outside.” There were no injuries. Firefighters from Lewis Arriola, Dolores, Mancos and Ute Mountain provided mutual aid.

LIFE ON LADDER - 2023

Photo: Trinidad Fire Department
Firefighters in Trinidad, Colorado, battled a house fire on Nov. 5, 2023, with the assistance from the Hoehne Volunteer Fire Department, Fisher's Peak Volunteer Fire Department and Pinon Canyon Fire & Emergency Services.

DENVER FIRE RESERVE

The Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 27, 1952 

FLAGLER AIR SHOW - 1951

On Sept. 15, 1951, an aircraft performing a stunt plowed into spectators at an air show in rural Flagler, Colorado, claiming 20 lives - including 13 children and the pilot of the doomed craft.

Many other spectators suffered severe injuries.

"News of the tragedy was flashed by phone to all surrounding towns and to Denver," The Rocky Mountain News said. "Ambulances and doctors rushed from as far east as Goodland, Kan., and as far west as Denver to aid the victims.

"The injured were carried by car and ambulance to the tiny hospital here," the News said. "Dr. John Straub and Dr. W. L. McBride and a staff of volunteer workers performed yeoman tasks in rendering first aid to the injured."

Victims were transferred to hospitals in Denver, Goodland and other communities.

Flagler's population at the time was about 700. Attendance at the air show from the town and its surroundings was well above that.

The military sent "four SA-16 rescue planes from Lowry Field, loaded with doctors, first aid men, plasma and medicine, landed at the tiny site of the tragedy to join in rescue activities," the News said.

Time Magazine quoted Charlie Keller, a farmer attending the show with his wife, Kathy, teenage daughter Zenelda and 6-year-old twins Johnny and Josephine,

“I saw this plane coming. I hollered. ‘Mama, duck!’ I dived between two cars. There was an awful roar, and then this loud crash," Keller said.

"I got up. looked around. Mama wasn’t there. I couldn’t see the children either, A short time before the accident. Mama said to me. ‘Somebody could get killed.’ I remember I said, I guess somebody could get killed, Mama.’"

Keller's wife, daughter and son Johnny died.

Time Magazine noted: "Every family in town could count a member killed or hurt."

There was no grandstand. Families sat in or on cars. Show announcer Curtis Clarke was credited with preventing panic, asking male survivors to escort women and children from crash site and return to render aid, the News said.

Flagler is located in Kit Carson County and about 125 miles southeast of Denver. 

CANON CITY - 1929

Images: Pathe Newsreel, Private Collection and Rocky Mountain News

Click on diagram to view extent of damage

On Oct. 3, 1929, 13 people - both guards and inmates - died in a riot and raging fire at the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City, and a Catholic priest "dressed for golf" emerged as an unlikely hero through a hail of bullets.

The mutineers set blazes and raided the arsenal, but inmate trusties remained loyal to the warden and manned firehoses.

"Steadily and calmly, while the gun battle raged and during the cessation of firing, the trusties aided firemen to control the fire," The Rocky Mountain News said.

Firefighters from as far as Pueblo reinforced the Canon Fire Department as flames consumed cellblocks, the mess hall, the chapel and prison library. 

The violence delayed Canon City fire crews and police from entering the penitentiary grounds.

The Colorado National Guard also arrived.

The struggle to defeat the rioters lasted almost a day.

"The battle was marked by two attempts to dynamite the cell house walls, one blast breaking all the windows, but failing to effect a breach in the masonry," the Associated Press reported.

"The hero of the dynamiting attempts was a Catholic priest. Father Patrick O’Neill, who carried the bombs to the foot of the cell house wall, under cover of machine gun fire from the prison walls," AP said.

O'Neill, 43, was a teacher with no ties to the state penitentiary. There by happenstance, the priest made two dashes from the prison gate, each time carrying 25 pounds of dynamite. He knew nothing about explosives.

In a letter the the editor of Time Magazine, criticizing its coverage of the event, O'Neill told his story, saying: "To view my purpose as one of  'death,' rather than one of mercy to the other 160 men in Cellhouse No. 3 is rank unfairness. Women and children and men too, were scared that night. Action had to be taken; and, since I had no dependants, why I volunteered. This 'hero' stuff is also distasteful to me."

Furthermore, O'Neill wrote: "I was also dressed for golf, and was on my way to the Club, when a young lady told me her Daddy was trapped by the convicts within the Pen. 'Greater love hath no man, than a readiness to lay down his life for them.' That, and that alone was my purpose."

Even so, O'Neill was honored by the Carnegie Hero Find Commission. He lived until age 84, dying in a nursing home in Cullman, Alabama, on Aug. 16 1971, according to a brief obituary published in The New York Times. He was ordained by the Order of St. Benedict in 1915.

Photo of Father O'Neill published in Rocky Mountain News 

Text of Father O'Neill's letter to Time Magazine (Nov. 4, 1929)

Sirs:

A friend has just given me your version of the Prison Episode. I am quite surprised at your unfairness. The terms you use, and the angle you viewed, agree with a certain anonymous threat from Springfield, Mo. My friend demanded that I write you, though, for he claims that your magazine endeavors to be fair and play the game square.

"Burly" is an opprobrious term. To view my purpose as one of ''death," rather than one of mercy to the other 160 men in Cellhouse No. 3 is rank unfairness. Women and children and men too, were scared that night. Action had to be taken; and, since I had no dependants (cq), why I volunteered. This "hero" stuff is also distasteful to me. But I don't care for your readers to have the impression of a Priest wishing death in preference to life.

I am not the Chaplain at the Pen. In fact, I was never in it before, having come to Colorado in September of this year. I am Chaplain at Holy Cross Abbey, and teach Psychology and English. I have been criticised for not going in this Cellhouse and persuading them to give up. Under the circumstances, that was quite impossible. I was also dressed for golf, and was on my way to the Club, when a young lady told me her Daddy was trapped by the convicts within the Pen. "Greater love hath no man, than a readiness to lay down his life for them." That, and that alone was my purpose.

Relying on your American honesty and integrity I beg to remain,

FATHER PATRICK O'NEILL, O. S. B. Canon City, Colo.

LUCKY DUCKLING - 2024

Photo: Poudre Fire Authority
On May 5, 2024, Poudre Fire Authority firefighters rescued ducklings from a storm drain in the 4000-block of Fossil Boulevard in Fort Collins, Colorado, and reunited them with their mother. Engine Co. 5 was assigned to the call.

NEAR ZERO - 2022

Photo: Adams County Fire Rescue
Fighting fire and the weather, these Adams County, Colorado, firefighters are contending with flames, smoke and near-zero temperatures at an abandoned building at 60th Avenue and Federal Boulevard on Dec. 23, 2022. 

INTO THE ABYSS - 2023

Photo: South Metro Fire Rescue
Eerie scene at fire at Waste Connections transfer station on South Jordan Street in Centennial, Colorado, on Sept. 19, 2023.

FIRST FIRE

"Denver’s first recorded fire took place March 18, 1860, when a livery stable in Auraria burnt to the ground with a loss of $18,000" - Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 18, 1951

GLOBEVILLE - 1920

Photos: Rocky Mountain News

On Sept. 6, 1920, two Denver & Interurban Railroad interurban trains collided in the Globeville area of Denver. Scores of people were hurt. About a dozen died.

"Fifty patrolmen and two details of firemen were rushed to the scene," the Rocky Mountain News reported. "Ambulances were sent from hospitals and police headquarters."

Uninjured passengers aided in the rescue.

Passenger P.F. Zarina., whose brother died in the wreck,  described the collision to the Rocky Mountain News:

“I was riding with the motorman on the inbound Interurban ... the car was so crowded there was hardly room to breathe."

"As we rounded the long turn coming into Globeville, the conductor turned to me, white as a sheet, and stammered, ‘My God! What is that? Then the motorman shouted ‘Jump!"

 “The conductor and another of the men hit telegraph poles, and were crushed by the impact. I was lucky and hit dirt."

"As soon as I could walk I started to look for my brother. Pretty soon I found some firemen and policemen pulling him out of the wreck."

The News said pickpockets mixed in with rescuers, adding insult to injury.

DENVER - 1878

Scene of Denver in 1870s

In the 1870s, Denver was a growing "two-horse town" having been a fledgling "one-horse town" in the 1860s.

Fire and flash floods posed an existential threat, even after precautions, such brick construction and improved firefighting, were implemented after the Great Fire of 1863 and the calamity of the Great Flood that followed that.

Following is an excerpt of a first-hand account of an 1878 blaze at 15th and Wynkoop streets accompanied by a flash flood of Cherry Creek. It was published in the Denver Tribune of May 22, 1878. Sadly, we have yet to come upon photographs.

"Never did flood swell so," the Tribune reporter wrote that day. Well, perhaps that was true of 1878, however, greater calamities followed as Denver reached metropolis status by the 20th century. 

 

Excerpt from Denver Daily Tribune, May 22, 1878 

ORIENTAL REFINERY - 1955

Volunteer Firefighter Harold Hubbard of the South Adams County Fire Department suffered fatal injuries at the Oriental Refinery in Commerce City, Colorado, on April 5, 1955. Five other firefighters were hurt when a  gas-cracking furnace exploded. Bystanders and refinery workers were hurt, too. "All of the sudden, the whole damn building blew up," Assistant Fire Chief Kenneth Gahagen told The Rocky Mountain News. "It went with a whoof."  The blast also damaged the fire engine and the hose.

TURNER HALL - 1920

On July 9, 1920, a conflagration swept East Denver and water was scarce.

Flames gutted East Turner Hall, a social venue at 20th and Arapahoe streets, and spread to businesses - including an auto company and hotel - as well as houses. Sections of the hall collapsed, showering bricks and cinders.

A general alarm summoned 22 engine and truck companies, almost all of Denver's firefighting force. Police patrolman Forrest Ross carried a semi-conscious woman from the Madison Hotel, The Rocky Mountain News reported.  

Low hydrant pressure disrupted operations .

Quoted by the News, W. F. R. Mills, manager of the city water department, said: “An attempt to direct twelve hose streams from two six-inch mains would naturally tend to reduce the pressure, to say nothing of the fact that everywhere demand was being made on the mains by garden hoses used in fighting the score or more of fires that sprang up." 

Describing the initial stages of the fire, Denver Fire Chief John Healy said: "Engine Company No, 4, whose engine house is only a block from Turner Hall, responded to the alarm as soon as it was sent into the central station. It hardly took a moment for it to get to the scene, and when the combination wagon arrived they were unable to park in the alley on account of the flames flaring thru the windows."

East Turner Hall was located at 2150 Arapahoe Street. Earlier that day, firefighters contended with a major blaze at St. John's First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1846 Arapahoe Street. Remnants of both structures are long gone. 

FIRE RESPONSE

SAVED WOMAN

CHIEF HEALY

Chief John Healy led the Denver Fire Department for 33 years - a classical smoke eater who ushered in the age of motorized fire apparatus and oversaw a dramatic expansion of the city's emergency service.

The Associated Press described the chief as "one of the best known firefighters in the country."

Healy, who immigrated from Ireland, joined the fire department in 1894 and rose to the rank of fire chief in 1912.

He was a "fireman's fireman" - directing firefighting at many of Denver's largest blazes during the early 20th Century, including the Turner Hall conflagration in East Denver on July 9, 1920.

As an assistant fire chief, Healy was critically hurt in an acid spill at the Denver Post in 1904, but returned to duty after a six-month period of recuperation in California. 

"His physician has advised a lower altitude, and his friends have prevailed upon him to take a short vacation," the Rocky Mountain News reported on Oct. 14, 1904. 

Healy also served as president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

It's probably safe to say he loved his job.

GROUND ZERO - 2001

Photo: FEMA

Colorado Task Force 1 assisted in the search and recovery at the World Trade Center in New York the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

THEATER DISTRICT - 1929

Photo: Denver Public Library
Denver Theater District on Curtis Street, circa 1927-1930. To the front right is the Nanking Chop Suey Restaurant, which probably did a thriving business. 

Photo: Rocky Mountain News
Firefighters, police and spectators at Quincy Building fireground at 17th and Curtis.


On Feb. 2, 1929, seven Denver firefighters were injured or overcome by chemical fumes in a two-alarm blaze at the Quincy Building at 17th and Curtis streets - in what was then known as the Theater District.

That's where the citizenry thronged to see the movies.

The fire, naturally enough, broke out in or near a stash of films, negatives and chemicals stored in the basement of the Quincy Building by Universal Studio, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

Firefighters advancing hoses into the basement were beaten back and the crew of Truck Company 10 was partially overcome, the News said. They finally cut holes in the floor and flooded the basement.

The fire drew 2,000 or more spectators and "police struggled in vain to beat the crowds back as firemen shouted warnings that an explosion might happen," the News said.

Fire Chief John Healy directed 13 downtown fire companies, assisted by District chiefs William S. Bryan, Clarence A. Hawkins, Raymond Giffords and J. Moses   

The first alarm was transmitted at 12:16 p.m, the second alarm as ordered at 12:22 p.m., and the fire was out at 3 p.m., the News said.

DENVER FIRE CLAY - 1930

Firefighters inspecting the railroad tank car, rescuer Richard Davies (inset) and Denver Mayor Stapleton at the scene of the industrial accident.

 

On Aug. 27, 1930, deadly chlorine gas escaped from a railroad tank car and drifted into the Denver Fire Clay Co. plant - causing a major industrial accident.

Twenty-three people, including 13 Denver firemen, were overcome by the yellow-colored gas, the Associated Press reported. The tank car carried 16 tons of the chemical.

J.W. Gibbs, a plant worker, donned a gas mask and closed a leaking valve, AP said.

The firemen weren't equipped with masks, AP said. The entire crew of Engine Co. 10 was felled by the fumes, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

Richard Davies, 24, a Yale University student working at the plant, hustled into the gas to administer first aid with a flask of ammonia - a chemical that can counter the effects of chlorine, the News said.

Davies said he learned that in chemistry class.

"There wasn't time to wait for doctors and ambulances, so I just dived right in," Davies, who eventually fell ill, said from his bed at Denver General Hospital. The ammonia was stored in a plant emergency kit.

The Denver Fire Clay Co. was located at 32nd and Blake streets - in the "factory district," as the News called it.