Air Force Academy cadets and personnel deemed mission-critical are holding their ground, as of midday on June 27 local time, as the Waldo Canyon fire rages in Colorado Springs, Colo., according to academy officials. Already, approximately 2,100 people living in the Pine Valley and Douglass Valley housing facilities at the southern end of the academy were evacuated. The grounds are closed to visitors and non-essential personnel, and academy officials have suspended on-campus athletic activities until further notice, academy spokesman Harry Lundy told the Daily Report. However, new cadets will still be in-processed on campus on June 28, as scheduled. Many of those cadets would otherwise be stranded at airports en route, he said. Lundy said the new cadets were briefed on evacuation procedures should the fire crawl closer to the campus, but he emphasized that the situation posed no immediate danger. “From where I’m at in the north end of the campus, it’s partly cloudy,” he said.
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
