Fire crews are still battling multiple wildfires in Larimer and Boulder Counties, and evacuation orders for hundreds of households remain in effect. But days into a robust disaster response, affected communities in Northern Colorado are starting to settle into a new routine.
On Thursday, the Larimer County evacuation center, set up at the Foundations Church in Loveland, was still actively serving several victims of the Alexander Mountain Fire. It will continue providing shelter, meals, and supplies, as well as medical and mental health services to all evacuees until the evacuation orders are lifted.
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But shelter manager Lorraine Janson said the initial influx of evacuees had already eased.
“Things are settling down,” she said. “Right now, most of (the evacuees) are filtering out. They're finding relatives and friends to stay with.”
Less than 30 people were still sheltering at the evacuation center by Thursday afternoon.
Donna Williams and Jerry Godbey were among them. They’d been staying in their motor home in the church parking lot since Monday, when an email alert directed them to evacuate their historic home on Big Thompson River.
“We essentially just grabbed what we knew we were going to need — a little bit of clothing and our documents,” Godbey said, “So, we're anxious to get back home and see what's left.”
Several days into the chaos and disruption of evacuation, the couple remained calm. And for good reason — they’d been through this gantlet before. Godbey said it was their third evacuation since 2013.
As of Friday afternoon, the Alexander Mountain Fire had grown to more than 9,000 acres and was 5% contained.
Lyons community supports fire crews fighting the Stone Canyon Fire
Meanwhile, to the southwest in Lyons, where the Stone Canyon Fire has burned several homes and caused one fatality, librarian Jerilyn Patterson was ready to breathe a sigh of relief. She was in the library break room on Tuesday, when she saw flames peek above the ridge that overlooks downtown Lyons.
“There was a moment where I think a lot of the town was afraid because we could see the fire,” she said. “We were watching the aircraft dropping the red fire retardant. And I think if the wind had picked up, obviously the town would have been in trouble.”
Lyons Fire Chief Rob Stumpf agreed. He said if the fire got over the ridge, it would have been disastrous.
“There are a lot of homes up there, and it's right on the edge of town,” he said. “It wouldn't take anything at all for that fire to have come right down the hill into town proper.”
Fire crews from more than 30 agencies worked around the clock, in the heat, to keep that from happening.
“The running joke in the wildland arena is that sometimes we're high speed gardeners,” he said. “We have hand tools, and we might hike in a mile on really rough terrain, and we're scratching line with hoes and rakes to essentially create a fire break that won't permit the fire to pass over.”
Each house had its own firefighting team assigned to protect it.
“If you go up Stone Canyon Road, they did some amazing work. There are houses standing intact up there that are surrounded by black,” Stumpf said. “Everything in their yards, on their properties burned, but the houses were saved. And that's testimonial to the fact that these guys were working their butts off and did amazing work up there.”
The Lyons community has responded with a outpouring of support for the firefighters. Disaster relief volunteer Gil Sparks described the donations of food, drinks and supplies as “overwhelming and generous.”
“I've seen Lyons doing what Lyons does best, which is just reaching out, helping,” Patterson said. She’s seen donations flooding into the library where she works, which has become the main collection point for contributions to the firefighters.
Stumpf said the support was a big morale boost for his crews.
“When you spend 16 hours on the line and you come back to the station, and you are wiped, you know that this whole community has got your back,” he said. “That's what gets you up. The next morning, and you go right back out on the line again. It just gives you chills.”
As of Friday afternoon, the Stone Canyon Fire had burned 1,553 acres and was 20% contained.
