The Waldo Canyon Fire continues to rage west of Colorado Springs consuming more than 15-thousand acres.  Containment stands at just 5-percent.  There鈥檚 still no word on how many structures have burned, and hundreds of firefighters continue to battle the blaze.

At the afternoon press conference yesterday Incident Commander Rich Harvey stepped to the bank of microphones.  Off in the distance smoke hung on the mountains like fog at a graveyard.

"I鈥檇 like to start by saying I hate wind, I wish it鈥檇 go away."

Harvey said the wind is kicking up and making things hard on the firefighters.

Crews were busy digging lines and attacking hot spots with the help of helicopters.  Still the fire spread 鈥� forcing the evacuation of thousands more yesterday from the town of Crystola near Woodland Park.
Again Harvey blamed the wind 鈥� saying it was driving the fire in unpredictable directions.

"So we鈥檙e kind of from a fire standpoint used to fires that want to go in different directions.  What鈥檚 been different about this one, is that they鈥檝e wanted to go in different directions for sustained periods of time. You know, 3-4 hours, all day long, so I鈥檇 say it鈥檚 a very unusual situation."

Harvey pointed to a map behind him that shows the progression of the fire 鈥� south one day, north the next, and then east.
"I鈥檝e been doing this for a long time, and I鈥檝e never seen a progression map look like that."

Officials are still assessing how many homes were destroyed.  And said numbers could be released sometime today.

At a Red Cross shelter at Cheyenne Mountain High School Chester and Beth Mosley, who live near Woodland Park already know there house is gone.  It鈥檚 the second time in two years their home has burned down.  The first was not caused by a wildfire.

"Last year, our RV burned down and we lost everything we owned, this year our structure is gone and we鈥檙e now homeless and her work has been closed since the fire, because the fire started about, oh, a few hundred yards from where she works."

Their neighborhood was evacuated Sunday.  First to a shelter at Woodland Park High School 鈥� which also had to be evacuated when the fire got too close.  They eventually ended up here. Chester says they鈥檙e leaving the state 鈥� for somewhere, perhaps a bit more wet.

"Next to a river, something like that.  We may joke about it but we鈥檙e done, this is two years in a row for us, I mean, so we can鈥檛, how many times can you rebuild?"

Chester says the evacuation Sunday was calm and organized.  That was not David Atkinson鈥檚 experience.  Tuesday evening the fire swept towards his Mountain Shadows neighborhood quickly.

"It was like something out of a Hollywood movie, like a Towering Inferno thing, because the fire came over the ridge, and it was just coming so fast that people were just barely had enough time to run out their house and jump in their car and get away."

Thousands of people were all doing the same thing Tuesday night.

"And everything was backed up, you couldn鈥檛 really go anywheres.  People were starting to panic, people were running around in the street, people were driving over curbs and parking lots. It was just a total nightmare."

He鈥檚 staying with friends 鈥� and came to the shelter today to find out if his house burned down.  He left without any information -- and he鈥檚 antsy to find out.

"At least you know, if you鈥檙e house is burned down, at least you have a chance to process that accept it, and move on with your life."

Fire officials said they expect a front to move in today increasing cloud cover and humidity -- but they cautioned it probably wouldn鈥檛 be enough to keep the fire from growing.