A Steamboat Springs couple who married in the path of a California forest fire — only to be evacuated with their guests — had a wedding no one will soon forget.
Julie Sokolowski, 31, and Ken Grady, 44, could smell smoke Saturday as they exchanged vows in a clearing at a trail camp run by her stepfather in the Angeles National Forest, adjacent to metropolitan Los Angeles.
The couple had originally planned to marry in the fall.
But after Sokolowski’s stepfather warned the forest-fire danger would be high then, they moved the date to April, when fire is normally less of a threat.
About 45 guests — among them children and dogs, the judge who performed the ceremony and members of a bluegrass band — hiked 4 miles into the camp.
Mules carried instruments, equipment, food and everything they would need for a celebration.
After the Saturday evening ceremony, they got a call on the camp’s radio phone (from the company that provided the mules) telling them about the fire.
“They said not to be alarmed. We could continue and spend the night, and the plan was to hike out on Sunday anyway,” Sokolowski recalled Monday.
But Sunday morning, three members of Sierra Madre Search and Rescue arrived and told the group they would have to evacuate them, either by foot or helicopter.
Rescuers decided that an airlift was needed.
“There (were) a lot of children there and a few older folks too. . . . They had to do it because they were concerned for people who couldn’t hike out,” said the groom, a Steamboat Springs postal worker.
Rescue workers were concerned the chopper was too big to land on the hillside. So the evacuees hopped onto the hovering bird, said Sokolowski, who has a bookkeeping business.
“It was exciting. Nobody was in a real panic because we could just see smoke — it wasn’t like we could see the flames,” she said.
The chopper made five trips to fly all members of the group to the packing station.
More than 400 firefighters battled the 400-acre fire, aided by two helicopters and water-dropping air tankers.
The blaze forced more than 1,000 people from homes in the area.
“The wedding itself was very unique; it was a blast. It’s just the exit was a little dramatic,” Sokolowski, now Julie Grady, said.
Denver Post wire services and CNN contributed to this report.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
