Down a dusty driveway in what’s left of the Forbes Park neighborhood, a disaster clean-up volunteer spotted an American flag still hanging from its pole.
The flag’s owner hadn’t been able to take it down before the Spring Creek fire forced her to evacuate.
The Forbes Park resident asked Team Rubicon, an international nonprofit disaster clean-up group brought in by Costilla County to clear the roads of fallen trees, if its volunteers could keep an eye out for the flag.
“It was just singed on the edges and a little dirty,” Team Rubicon training lead Mark Ambrose said. “She was happy to have it back… Her father was a Korean War veteran. His flag was inside the home and did not survive the fire.”
Team Rubicon started in 2010 when two Marines put together a group of veterans, first responders and medical professionals to provide recovery help after the devastating earthquake in Haiti. It quickly became a go-to organization for communities in need of cleanup services after natural disasters like quakes, floods and fires — especially in poorer communities that can’t afford to pay for clean-up. More than 60 percent of homeowners helped by Team Rubicon haven’t had insurance.
“We’re out there right now ahead of the homeowners clearing roads,” Ambrose said after a meeting at the Red Cross Shelter in Fort Garland.
The charity isn’t charging the county for its services. Once it clears the roads in Costilla and Huerfano counties, Team Rubicon’s 45 Spring Creek fire volunteers will split into smaller groups to help individual homeowners. They’ll sift through ashes, clear land and keep an eye out for sentimental items. So far, 50 homeowners impacted by the Spring Creek fire have signed up for assistance.
“A lot of them were unaware of who we are and what we do,” Ambrose said. “Most of them are in disbelief when we tell them we can clear their property for zero dollars and zero cents.”
Team Rubicon isn’t a small charity. In Colorado alone, the group has 3,586 registered “grey shirts,” the group’s name for volunteers. There are about 80,000 grey shirts around the world.
The charity deployed to Nepal in 2015 when an earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people. And they traveled to Houston in 2017 after Hurricane Harvey flooded entire neighborhoods.
“We helped a woman whose house was leveled by the flood. Nothing was recoverable,” Ambrose said. “All she wanted was her brother’s dog tags from Vietnam.”
The volunteers in Houston got lucky that day. They found the tags. And that, Ambrose said, is the reason he travels from disaster to disaster — to help people recover a little bit of hope in the midst of a tragedy.
Team Rubicon isn’t the only charity offering cleanup services to victims of the Spring Creek fire. There’s a network of charities working together through a group called Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster.
VOAD, as it is known, started in 1970 as a way for charities to make sure they aren’t stepping on each other’s toes after a disaster, said Ian Anderson, the chair of Colorado’s VOAD. The Centennial State has 22 volunteer organizations in the group.
“For the Spring fire we are having daily conference calls to see what the needs are on the ground,” Anderson said. “It helps us avoid duplication of efforts.”
VOAD has become the go-to place for city, county and state officials because they can count on those charities to follow the rules on everything from cooking meat to sterilizing medical equipment.
Team Rubicon plans to stay in southern Colorado as long as its needed. Ambrose thinks that will probably be close to the end of July. A lot of Rubicon members are military veterans, so they think of it like a deployment.
“We stay until the mission is done,” Ambrose said.
To donate to Team Rubicon or any of the charities helping Coloradans with recovery at each of the major wildfires, visit VOAD’S website: HelpColoradoNow.org.
Wildfires in the U.S.
The map shows active fire locations and all 2018 fire perimeters (not all fires have perimeter data, zoom in to see perimeters of smaller fires). To see all 2018 fire locations or to change the map background, click the map layers icon in the upper right corner of the map and click/unclick the boxes. Pinch or use buttons to zoom, or drag the map to see other areas; click a marker for details. Go to the full map and table.
Data from InciWeb and GeoMAC; map by Kevin Hamm
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