Two firefighters among dead in Ordway blaze

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 16, 2008 at 7:48 a.m.
Updated April 16, 2008 at 4:40 p.m.

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John Schwartz

Terry DeVore, 30, Olney fire chief

Terry DeVore's family taken at Christmas

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The text message read "Meet me at Terry's house."

Bruce DeVore, a volunteer firefighter in Olney Springs, sent it to his wife, Deb, and their son, Rocky, Tuesday night.

They knew something was wrong. Terry DeVore, chief of the Olney Springs Fire Department, was helping battle the Ordway wildfire.

Deb DeVore said she drove to their son Terry's house and waited with his wife, Jennifer.

"She said, 'Don't panic, but everybody was told to meet here,'" Jennifer DeVore recalled. "I thought everything was going to be all right."

Then Bruce DeVore showed up, along with the coroner and a chaplain.

"My husband said, 'We lost him,'" Deb said. "My husband grabbed me and I started to cry. Jennifer just lost it."

"I told them they were lying," Jennifer DeVore said.

Terry DeVore and another volunteer firefighter, John Schwartz, were killed in their firetruck trying to cross a bridge over a drainage ditch about a mile west of Ordway.

"It was one of those, 'Oh, God, don't let it be true' moments," Schwartz's mother, Toni, said.

The families cried today as they tried to make sense of the tragedy.

Terry and Jennifer DeVore were the parents of four children, ages 10 to 4. Schwartz was the father of four boys, ages 4 to 16.

DeVore, 30, and Schwartz, 38, worked at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility. DeVore began in 2004 and was a sergeant. Schwartz, a correctional officer, started last December.

"Not only did these two fine men serve the public by upholding safety and security in their daily jobs, but they further served their communities by volunteering," said Ari Zavaras, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections.

"That they paid the ultimate price is a tragedy."

Devore has been with the Olney Springs volunteer fire department for 10 years, Schwartz recently joined.

The Olney Springs emergency vehicles had rolled out about 3:45 p.m. Bruce DeVore rode in a firetruck behind his son's and Schwartz's truck.

"From what I understand, the smoke was so bad on the highway they couldn't see," Deb DeVore said. "They could see his taillights and they were following him. All of a sudden the taillights disappeared and they slowed down. The road was no longer there."

The fire had gone under the bridge and burned it.

"The visibility was so bad that the bridge had collapsed ahead of them and they didn't even know it," Crowley County Coroner Karen Tomky said.

She met with both families Tuesday night.

Schwartz, who was single, was raising his two eldest boys and had shared custody of his two youngest sons. Toni Schwartz said the older boys were at their house in Fowler because their school had been evacuated. They didn't know how long their dad would be at the fire.

"The boys were pretty torn up," Toni Schwartz said. "Their dad was their whole world."

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