When it gets cold, a deep pain pierces 71-year-old Charles “Bud” Burrill’s right hand.

And when he hears news of someone burned in a fire, the pain is emotional. He flashes back to Jan. 17, 1950, and the wind-whipped inferno that killed nine, consumed 50 square miles of Cheyenne Mountain and Camp Carson and seriously injured more than 30 soldiers.

Burrill was one of them, hospitalized for months with third-degree burns over his face, hand and legs.

Even now, 52 years after the Pikes Peak region’s worst fire, the memories cause Burrill to choke up.

“I was driving a jeep as fast as I could, trying to get an injured fireman to the base hospital,” Burrill said in a halting voice during a phone interview from his home outside Seattle. “There was so much smoke. A wooden bridge had burned and was gone, but I didn’t see it and drove right into the ditch.

“My face went right into the fire – I remember seeing these red ashes. It about burnt my face off. My right hand was real deep in the ashes. I pulled my hand out and all the skin fell off.”

Burrill, a private at the time, was trapped in the burning ravine, pinned by his overturned jeep.

“It was a pretty stinky situation,” he said. “I don’t know how I got out.”

Horror stories abound from that catastrophic wildfire, which started after midnight, reportedly when high wind gusts estimated at 100 mph ignited smoldering brush piles left by crews clearing the land for new golf courses at The Broadmoor hotel.

It took about 5,000 firefighters, soldiers and volunteers to control the blaze, which burned hot for almost 24 hours and smoldered for weeks until a heavy snowfall extinguished lingering hot spots.

The fire killed eight soldiers and a 14-year-old Springs boy who skipped classes at West Junior High to join the fight.

By the time it was extinguished, the fire had damaged or destroyed dozens of buildings on the post, mainly warehouses and old prisoner-of-war barracks on the north end of Camp Carson, as it was known then. Damage on post was estimated at $3.5 million – the equivalent of $26 million in today’s economy.

As fire danger grows this summer – it’s already rated very high – officials are citing the ’50 blaze as an example of what could happen if a wildfire gets started in the foothills around the Springs.

Only this time, they warn, the loss of life likely would be far greater, and the property damage would approach the hundreds of millions of dollars, because the area’s explosive growth in the past half-century.

The Springs in 1950 was a tourist and Army town of 45,000. Other than The Broadmoor, Cheyenne Mountain was home to a few ranchers and miners, scattered summer cabins and the exotic animals of Spencer Penrose’s zoo.

Today, the Springs is about 10 times larger – a city of about 400,000 – and many of the new residents live in large, expensive homes on Cheyenne Mountain and all along the foothills.

The 1950 fire was first spotted and called in at 12:40 a.m. by a city utilities crew working on power lines on Cheyenne Mountain.

At 1:15 a.m., an assistant fire chief with The Broadmoor Volunteer Fire Department reported seeing a smoldering pile of brush south of The Broadmoor in the field being cleared for its new golf course.

The assistant chief was convinced the fire swept away from there, though The Broadmoor disputed the report.

Regardless, the blaze initially threatened the resort, coming within yards before winds shifted and sent it roaring up the face of the mountain.

Next, it exploded toward the southeast, charring acres of forest and prairie as it swept toward Camp Carson.

Along the way, it swallowed the Robert Bensberg ranch. Only a fireplace and chimney remained of the Bensberg’s one-story, six-room ranch home.

The fire drove huge herds of deer off the mountain before it jumped state Highway 115 and, by dawn, had attacked the Army post.

“We were living on post in barracks,” said Burrill, who was with the men of the 229th, a signal operation company based at a camp in New Jersey for winter training at Camp Hale, near Leadville.

“All of a sudden everything was burning and everybody was helping everybody,” Burrill recalled. “The wind would blow so heavily that everything was burning. There were fires all over the post. The wind just lifted the fire and carried it everywhere.”

Swirling winds confounded firefighters, repeatedly trapping them and overrunning them, according to news accounts of the firestorm and memories of survivors.

Some escaped serious injury by diving into tall grass as the fire swept over the top – it was blowing so hard the fire burned the tops of the grass and brush.

Others were overrun by fire so hot it made the trees explode in pillars of flame.

That’s what happened to 14-year-old Harley McCullough, and a handful of soldiers trying to hold off flames at the main gate.

According to news reports, McCullough ducked out of school as city leaders called for volunteers to fight the fire.

He was one of the first on the scene at the main gate and was with a group of soldiers who found themselves facing a wall of fire when winds changed suddenly.

The boy suffered burns over much of his body and languished 45 days at the Army hospital before dying from his injuries.

“I remember the poor chap,” Burrill said. “The youngster was in bad shape. He and a few of the others who didn’t make it were in private rooms in our ward. They moaned in pain all day and all night. It was so painful.”

The Army cited the youth for valor “equal to a soldier in military tradition” and honored him along with the eight soldiers who died by renaming streets at Camp Carson after them.

Survivors recall a horrific day of fire, especially seeing balls of fire – burning embers carried aloft by the wind – dropping on them. Many landed on the roofs across the sprawling Army camp, setting them on fire.

It was a chaotic scene as soldiers hindered by choking, swirling smoke scrambled to battle a fire that seemed to be everywhere.

In the mayhem on post, Berrill and a buddy, Frank Finn, stopped to help two firemen dragging a hose between two barracks buildings.

Suddenly, the sky got dark and they looked up to see the burning roof of the barracks lifted by the wind and tossed down on them, injuring two firemen.

“We put them in the jeep and started racing to the base hospital,” he said. “All of a sudden there was thick smoke and I was flying over the hood.”

The jeep wreck at the burned-out bridge put them all in the hospital.

News accounts of his recovery included a photo of Burrill, his face severely blistered, his right hand heavily bandaged, in his hospital bed.

Burrill spent weeks in a ward with about 30 other seriously injured soldiers.

He recovered in time to rejoin his company as they shipped out that June for Korea.

His combat tour in Korea included facing the Chinese Army as it crossed the Yalu River in late November 1950, forcing U.S. troops into a massive retreat, crossing hundreds of miles on foot in cold and snow.

Burrill was hospitalized again after being hit three times with shrapnel from mortar fire in separate incidents and suffering from severe frostbite to his legs and feet.

Burrill’s scars remain from surgeries on his face and legs, including several skin grafts and arterial bypasses to restore circulation in his legs.

There are emotional scars, as well. He downplays his own role in the fire and later in Korea, instead offering praise to his fellow soldiers and firemen, whom he describes as “one tough bunch of warriors.”

Years later, he still has a visceral reaction to flame.

“You won’t catch me near a fire,” he said, “even to roast a marshmallow.”