It's known as "the scar," the remains of a rock quarry on the side of the mountain.

Rob Hellem's family had a front row view of the Waldo Canyon Fire.

"We looked though our back window and saw the fire coming down the mountain," Hellem said. "It really startled us. It literally looked like lava. It was coming down so fast."

They evacuated, thinking they were going to come home to nothing.

"It was very emotional," Hellem said. "My wife had a lot of tears as we were leaving."

When they returned, everything was the way they left it. It was all thanks to the one thing they didn't care for before--the scar.

"It took out all the heavy fuels and obviously saved our half of the neighborhood," resident Matt Rodgers said. "If that heavy timber was all the way out here we wouldn't have a house right now."

The fire line stopped at the edge of the quarry. Charred forest can be seen just above the rock and hundreds of homes beneath untouched.

"We came home and the bull dozer line was behind our house," Hellem said. "We saw the scar was intact and our whole neighborhood was saved. We totally love the scar now."

The perspective in the Oak Valley community changed forever. The rock quarry is no longer a scar on the community.

"Thank goodness for the quarry," Rodgers said. "It saved the neighborhood for sure."

"We really thought we were going to lose everything," Hellem said. "It's very emotional for us because of what it did do for us."

Children in the neighborhood have also made signs that say "We love the Quarry."

(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)