Air Force Academy officials announced early morning on June 28 local time that academy firefighters, supported by US Forest Service aircraft, had contained a 10-acre fire on the academy’s southwest corner, near Pine Valley. They said the fire did not reach any structures. They also announced late on June 27 local time that they were relocating some 550 cadets off of academy grounds in order to reduce the footprint of cadets and focus on the incoming Class of 2016 cadets scheduled to begin in-processing on June 28. (For updates, see the academy’s webpage on the Waldo Canyon fire.)
Clearing jungle and laying asphalt in tropical heat may not sound like fun to most people, but it’s a way of life for Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (RED HORSE) Airmen, who have spent the past year or so restoring World War II-era airfields on the Pacific…