Early on the morning of Oct. 9, a sheriff’s deputy saw a fire at the Caribou Village Shopping Center and reported it. Evacuation orders soon followed. Nobody was injured, but at least 20 businesses were destroyed.
One of them was Mountain Man Outdoor Store, an outdoor clothing store. Later that day, the store’s owner, John Thompson, began searching for a new space.
“I felt like if I sat down, I wouldn't get up. I need to keep moving,” he said.
Currently, the shopping center remains unsafe, so local businesses and volunteers are patching together temporary solutions and working on future plans. Nederland is looking into short and long-term spaces for displaced businesses, including the town’s community center.
Thompson said the owner of the Caribou Village Shopping Center gave tenants back their deposits and rent for the month.
Just eight days later, he put the money toward a new lease, across the street from his old store. He can see the destroyed shopping center through his window.
A large white sign already hangs out front. In hand-painted letters, it says, “Mountain Man 2.0.”
“People walking down the street have just crossed the street to hug me, and just be like, ‘John, we hope you're gonna be okay.’ And that's the reason why I'm still here,” he said.
Thompson had wanted to expand for a while. He’s been amassing new gear and Halloween supplies for local kids. He hopes to open up a t-shirt printing press and maybe even attract skiers en route to El Dora by offering rentals.
‘Because that’s what community is all about’
Doug Armitage is one of the business owners working on the next chapter. He and his wife, Barbara Hardt, ran Brightwood Music for 16 years, a fixture in Nederland’s rich musical heritage.
But recovery can be a tough and complicated road. The couple has to document thousands of valuable and unique instruments lost to the fire for insurance purposes, like an octave mandolin made by a company no longer in business.
“When I show a picture of that instrument to the insurance company, they might say something like, ‘Oh, well, you can get something new like that from China for 400 bucks,’” he said.
The fire also destroyed a sentimental instrument: a violin Armitage’s great-granduncle brought to the U.S when he escaped the Nazis.
Armitage, who is at retirement age, said when the insurance company suggested he could just walk away, he was tempted. But he plans on reopening the store.
“I have way too many customers who would be without a local resource,” he said. “When the kid is going on stage with Netherland High School with his viola and the bridge breaks the day before the show – and, of course, it always happens at five o'clock at night.”
Armitage said he drops everything to do those repairs.
‘She just broke out in tears’
As businesses make their way, volunteers and community members are stepping up to fill some gaps.
A local GoFundMe campaign has raised over $250,000 for impacted shops and workers. The Deli at ‘8236 is feeding fire victims. And a local music venue held a benefit concert for employees.
Last week, Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief set up a laundry trailer at the Nederland fire station, close to the damaged shopping center. Volunteers are washing towels, sheets and clothes, for free.
“They've lost their only laundromat in this mountain community, and they have to travel a good distance down the mountains to Boulder or up to Estes Park to find a laundromat, and this way it's right here in their backyard,” Dennis Belz, the organization’s state director, said.
For now, the mobile laundromat is open for drop offs Wednesdays through Saturdays, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Belz says they plan to be there until snow arrives.
“I'm here at a local restaurant, and the waitress came over to talk to me and asked what we were doing, and I told her, and she just broke out in tears, saying, ‘Oh, that is so sweet,'” Belz said over the phone.
While the cause of the fire remains under investigation, Nederland’s fire chief said on Friday that authorities do not believe it was arson.
Jon Cain, Nederland’s town administrator, told Axios Boulder the town has extended its emergency declaration, which will speed up certain review and approval processes needed to get businesses back up and running.
