The Story

You may be wondering how a few chickens from Colorado Springs became famous as a result of the worst disaster in the city’s 141 year history.  The answer is simple: heroism.  No, the chickens weren’t heroes … or heroines, in this case, but were saved from the Waldo Canyon Fire by the courageous actions of local and national firefighters then kept alive and well by other every day heroes of one of the greatest cities in America.

On June 23rd, we were evacuated by the CSFD due to the slowly advancing wild fire that began in Waldo Canyon a few miles from the outskirts of the city. We packed up our sweet baby boys, dog, and a few valuables and departed for a friend’s house a few miles away.  Before leaving we ensured that the nine chickens, located in their wooden coop behind the house, were well fed and watered: enough for three days that we expected to be gone.  That was on a Saturday.  On Tuesday we were allowed to return to the house for a few minutes to gather any additional items we might need. Once again, the chickens were fed and watered enough for another three days.  No one expected that the fire would actually enter the city.

That afternoon the fire roared into Mountain Shadows, and due to a sudden and drastic change in the direction and force of the wind, spread extremely fast.  Before the sun rose on Wednesday, almost 350 homes had been completely destroyed, thousands were damaged, and, most horrifying of all, two lives were lost.

The following Sunday we were allowed to return to our home.  Passing through the neighborhood we could see the total devastation; hundreds of our neighbors had lost everything.  As we turned up our street to climb the hill we saw several of our neighbors talking in the street, hugging, crying for those who lost their homes.   We feared the worst as we headed to the top of the hill.

As we parked in the driveway we were shocked to see that the front of the home was nearly pristine: flowers blooming and the lawn intact.  We walked immediately to the back of the house and the first thing we saw was a dead chicken lying in the garden.  We opened the partially burned coop, located immediately beside hundreds of burned trees and scorched deck, fearing the worst.  What we found shocked us; the remaining eight chickens were not only alive and well, but freshly fed and watered.  “Someone took care of our chickens?  In the midst of all this?”

We walked around the house inspecting the broken windows, burned trees and bushes and then walked to the front door.  On the front porch we found a note.  ”We removed one dead chicken from your coop and fed and watered the rest’ signed Montana Firefighters.”

These courageous firefighters fought through every firefighter’s nightmare, yet not only saved our home, but had taken the time to not only save a few chickens but to feed and water them for days as the firefighting continued.  We tried several times over the next few days to go back to the house to feed the chickens but were not allowed to enter the neighborhood.  Fortunately more heroes stepped forward: the police officers patrolling the neighborhood made a point to go to our house and feed the chickens, now known as the Hot Chicks.

The story of the Hot Chicks of the Waldo Canyon Fire went viral.  We wrote about how the out-of-state firefighters had saved the Hot Chicks and put it on a couple of social media outlets.  Friends shared with friends and it made the Associated Press wire and was published in newspapers around the country.  We were interviewed by two local television news stations and contacted by several publishers to write a book about the events.

No, the Hot Chicks were not heroines, but the first responders, military, and volunteer organizations of the Colorado Springs area and nationwide showed incredible humanity by taking care of a few lowly chickens. This is a story of our fellow Americans and what we do for each other without regard for credit or publicity.  God Bless them all.