26 homes lost
Fire hits 8,788 acres after starting Saturday in Boulder County
Courtney Walsh kept a little Smokey Bear stuffed animal in her Boulder County home — the teddy bear used to belong to her father when he was a child, and she always told her own kids it would keep wildfires away.
She forgot to grab the keepsake as she rushed through the house when the first evacuation order came through just before 2 p. m. Saturday. She ripped old photos and original family artwork off the walls, shaking as she corralled the kids and the rabbits and the dogs.
Thirty minutes after the first warning, at 2: 25 p. m., sheriff’s deputies roared into her driveway and urged the family to get out — the CalWood fire was closing in. They loaded up the car and fled.
“We were just waiting and waiting, and you know there is Twitter and live feeds,” she said. “Then we saw a picture from the
National Weather Service, and it focused on our house burning. So then we knew.”
A friend who is a Hygiene firefighter later confirmed to the family that their home about 6 miles north of Boulder was destroyed, and sent pictures of the smoking ruins, charred bricks and twisted metal beams.
“There were baby books that I didn’t grab, and I’m regretting it,” Walsh said Sunday, fighting tears. “Those are the one thing I always thought, ‘ I have to grab those if anything happens,’ and I just didn’t. I froze.”
The CalWood fire started Saturday and quickly grew to the largest wildfire in Boulder County’s history, burning between Jamestown and Lyons. Nearly 3,000 residents were evacuated Saturday afternoon as the smoke plume billowed over the Front Range.
The fire stood at 8,788 acres Sunday, or about 13 square miles. Firefighters were working to build direct containment lines to stop the fire’s spread, aided by calmer winds and more humid weather, Division Chief Mike Wagner with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said at a midday briefing.
Wagner said Sunday night there have been 26 homes lost in the fire, most of them on the eastern side of the fire, but the list was not complete.
No additional structures had been lost Sunday, Wagner said.
The perimeter of the fire did not grow much Sunday, and the fire was 15% contained by the evening. About 250 firefighters were working the blaze.
Wagner said Sunday evening that night operations would be patrolling for flare- ups and hot spots. He said the northern ridge was the most concerning part of the fire because of rocky, steep terrain.
Wagner added the Rocky Mountain Type 2 incident team was taking over operations Monday morning.
Walsh said three of seven homes in her neighborhood were destroyed.
Evacuation centers remained open at both Boulder County’s North Broadway Complex at 3460 N. Broadway and, for livestock, the Boulder County Fairgrounds at 9595 Nelson Road in Longmont.
Joe LaFollete, fairgrounds manager, said the grounds sheltered around 500 horses — just more than the usual maximum capacity of 450 — on Saturday night. By midday Sunday, the fairgrounds were sheltering 392 horses, 75 goats, 13 chickens, six sheep, five pigs, three llamas and donkey, he said.
The numbers have been declining as people find other places to house their evacuated animals or as they are able to return home, LaFollete said, adding the fairgrounds were still considering adding additional capacity in case more evacuations are ordered.
A second Boulder County fire — the Lefthand Canyon fire — started Sunday near the 14000 block of Lefthand Canyon Drive and forced evacuations.
The Boulder County fires are two of several wildfires that either started in October or grew substantially this month in an unusual late- season outbreak.
“The 2020 fire season is looking unlike anything we’ve seen before,” said Russ Schumacher, a climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University. The uptick is driven in part by hot and dry weather, he said.
“Normally by this time of year we would have more periods of cooler temperatures and some more precipitation,” he said.
More large wildfires have started this month than any other October in recent memory, he said. A warming climate, forest management and weather have all contributed to this year’s fire activity.
All of Colorado’s top 10 largest wildfires have burned in the last 20 years, including two this year. The largest fire in state history, the now more than 203,000- acre Cameron Peak fire, continues to grow and is about 62% contained.
“As of the late 1980s, what was considered the largest fire on record was 15,000 acres, and now we’ve seen several fires just in this month get close to that,” Schumacher said. “And Cameron Peak is shattering the record, with much of that growth happening in October.”
Back in Boulder, Walsh and her family aren’t sure what their next steps will be. Monday is her birthday, and they’d planned a staycation in town, so they already had hotel reservations when the evacuation order came down.
Now, they’re camped out in that hotel room, trying to figure out insurance and next steps. They tried to visit what was left of their house Sunday morning, but couldn’t get through. Law enforcement told them it was still too dangerous, she said.
Walsh is grateful her family escaped unhurt, but is still gutted by their lost home.
“We’re all safe, right? So, that’s what matters,” she said. “That’s what they say.”