Life in pre-evac

Look up the “Quarry Fire” on any search engine, and you will be as up-to-speed are we are, that is, wanting a little more information. The best I can usually do is information that is 11 hours or one day old. When I use the Brave search engine, it rolls  its AI down from the top and is not reliable. Yesterday it said that the fire was at 9,000 acres and was definitely caused by arson. The fire is at 450+ acres, and arson is suspected. Authorities will only say “human-caused”.

There’s a somewhat wild area to the east of us, and last Wednesday at 9PM a deputy on patrol saw something on a steep trail, one that has switchbacks. He saw a 10×10 area of fire. By morning it was at 200 acres and growing.

We’ve had no rain, no lightening. How that 10×10 area came about is under investigation, and is, according to law enforcement, “very suspicious”. That’s all we know.

Back in 2020 I got a text message from Jefferson County that Covid was on the march through our neighborhood and to shelter in place. That very day I called the Jeffco emergency people and demanded to be removed from their emergency warning system. Enough of your propaganda! So it was that last Thursday my wife brought her phone to me showing a text saying that our neighborhood was in “pre-evacuation” status. The Quarry Fire was, as it turns out, 3.5 miles due east of us, and uncontrolled. Everything east between us and the fire was under mandatory evacuation, accomplished at 2AM the night before. 600 families were rousted out.

Back in 2022 nearby we had the Marshall Fire, a wild conflagration that destroyed 1,000 homes. Winds as high as 115 mph were clocked. Amazingly, county and state agencies managed to evacuate the area so that perhaps one life was lost. I’m not even sure about that. So empathic was the evacuation that people were ordered to leave their pets behind. Sadly, they all perished. Long after the fire was out the people of the area gathered to pay tribute to lost pets, dogs, cats, horses, sheep, and goats. I still tear up thinking about it.

If we walk due east from here we pass four neighbors, and then encounter a deep ravine. That ravine, I think, is the reason we were not evacuated along with the rest. It acts as a barrier of sorts from spread of the fire.

The very first press conference last Thursday morning was troubling. Jefferson County had no resources. The area that contains the fire is wild and rugged, steep and rocky, and loaded with rattlesnakes. They could not send in “boots on the ground” for fear of endangering fire fighters. They had no access to planes and helicopters, all in use in other fires. They had to sit and watch as perhaps 1,000 homes in the area were at risk.

By Friday morning they had three helicopters dumping water from nearby Chatfield Reservoir and a large aircraft that was dumping retardant on the perimeter, 10,000 gallons a pop. You’d think that was enough, but as the county man-in-charge said, they could not win against this fire by air attack. They needed men. They soon had 20 or so fire fighters, and last I saw the number was 225. There are also two “Hotshot” teams at work, twenty each, fire fighters that train year round and are very good at working in rough territory. Today we learned that the fire is 10% contained.

What to do? We pack our stuff and loaded our vehicles. I don’t own much of value, some photos and pictures, a camera and laptop computer. I have clothing, of course, all replaceable. That is the key – if it is replaceable, leave it. We are still in pre-evac mode, but yesterday I unpacked my suitcase and put everything back in place. I call it “rational optimism”, that the fire, while still active, has sheltered in place, only growing from 340 acres to 450 in that time, and still 3.5 miles from us. There is massive hardware in place now, helicopters, large aircraft, bulldozers at work. Barring a conflagration caused by wind and storms, they will prevail, I believe. And, when we get wind here, it is usually from the west, so that it would blow the fire away from us and onto others. Not that I don’t care about others, but I do selfishly take comfort in that.

This is not our first pre-evacuation. I think it was in 2012 that we were in Phoenix and our son called to tell us about our neighborhood being in that status. Thirteen hours later we arrived home, and the following day the order was lifted. As it turned out the local water district was doing a backfire when the winds shifted on them, igniting an uncontrolled blaze. We all listened in horror as on the news an elderly man called the fire agency or 911, he and his wife’s home surrounded by fire. He bitterly cursed them for their incompetence before the two of them perished. God that was awful.

There are thousands of us living up here in what is called “the foothills” on the east slope of the Rockies above Denver and Boulder. I have thought more than once about the resources being expended now to protect us, millions upon millions of tax dollars (Colorado and Jefferson County do not print their own money and have to balance their budgets). Living up here is nice, summers only occasionally as hot as this one. But we tax resources by doing so. Our insurance rates are extremely high, only exceeded by our property taxes. To that end, I might assert that we pay our way as the Quarry Fire effort, while extremely expensive, is a rare event. I like to think we have paid our share, but more than once have thought perhaps it is time to move on.

We live on three wooded acres on a steep hillside. Maintaining our property can be backbreaking work. This year I decided, at age 74, that I would no longer cut down standing trees. It is too perilous and hard on my ankles. If a tree is already down, I will cut it up and drag it down, but no more will I stand there trying to get a cut tree to finally fall. Last year I stood stupidly as finally a lodgepole came down, right on top of me. I had on a helmet and glasses and chaps, and it first hit my head and then my neck. I was OK. Just embarrassed. Thus the new rule.

Michael Casamento is an ex-Marine who runs Urban Forest Services. Last year we had him remove some large trees. Watching him work was like watching a skilled surgeon. We’ll call him back this year.

That is, if our house is stills standing.