On June 9th I got up early to go garage saling with my Mom. We both live on the west side of town, right next to the foothills so we started out in those neighborhoods and very early on, about 9 o'clock, we noticed a tiny little smoke plume rising from the mountains. By the time we got home around noon it was MUCH worse!
The next day we went to a Rockies game and that evening when we got home it looked like this. It is really scary. I do live right next to the foothills but I understand the chances of it getting into Fort Collins was slim, I knew they would do everything in their power to stop that from happening. But just LOOKING at it... it's such a terrible sight, and it's SO close! It looks like a huge volcano, or bomb exploded right next to my house. I couldn't stop looking out the window. I have always been scared to death of fire. I used to HATE July 4th because I'd sit up in my bed at night listening to fireworks going off and just be terrified that one would land on my roof and start my house on fire. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and get worried that the heater would start something on fire so I'd get up and go around the house moving everything away from the vents.
Like I said, I didn't really think that it would get to Fort Collins, but every night I'd go to sleep I couldn't even see down my street it was so smokey. So one night I woke up in the middle of the night because the dogs were barking and right away my sleepy, irrational head thought - the fire got to us! And I freaked out!
This is the next afternoon view from my Mom's house. I went over to her house to pick her up so that we could go somewhere to try to get my camera fixed. All day I kept hearing on the news that so many people were going up to look at the fire and I kept thinking, 'dumb people, you're just getting in the way!' And then after picking Mom up and seeing the mountains we look at every day right in front of me on fire, I let my curiosity get the best of me and we drove up to Horsetooth (to join the crowd of dumb people).
We drove up to the reservoir close to the spot where Kevin proposed, but a little south of that. I didn't want to go too far north and get too close to where I thought we'd be interfering with firefighting traffic or any of that. This is the view looking south across the beautiful water - mountains untouched by fire...
Then this is the view from the same spot looking north. It was a terrible sight. You could see houses so close to the fire line on the other side of the water.
This is the view from Overland Trail, right next to my Mom's house. Sometimes I actually think I have a little ESP, or something like that. Several weeks ago when the Hewlett Gulch fire was happening it was further west and we couldn't actually see any fire and just saw smoke plumes, not actual mountains on fire. I remember driving down Overland looking at the mountains and actually thinking - how scary would that be if these mountains right in front of me were on fire and I could actually see it. Then this happens, and those mountains right in front of me are on fire, and I can actually see it...
We sat and watched it for a long time, watching the helicopters and planes fly in the fight the fire. I can't imagine being a firefighter, that would pretty much be the job of my nightmares! I am SO thankful that we have people that put their lives on the line to protect people, their homes, and the beautiful land that we live on. They were actually worried that if this fire jumped the Poudre Canyon it could run up the canyon and get into my Dad and Jan's neighborhood. 2 weeks after this fire started, that's exactly what happened. They had been on pre-evacuation for days and days, had left and come back, and on day 14 were emergency evacuated because it jumped the river and made a run for it. It got to about 50 homes in Glacier View, but luckily (for now) stopped before it got to them. It is still burning but as of now, Day 19, it is now 65% contained. Of course no one knows what will happen every day, but it hasn't grown for a couple days now, even in the terrible fire weather we've been having. Now there's a fire just south of us in Colorado Springs that has been blowing up out of control and burning into crowded neighborhoods. Sometimes I think that we are just ruining this planet and there's so much global warming and that's why temps and getting higher and higher and things are getting drier and drier and fires are going to start all over and we won't be able to do anything about it - but then I try not to be so pessimistic and negative. (Hopefully that's not my ESP talking :) )
My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who lost their homes or have been effected by this fire. And I thank God that one of my homes for the past almost 25 years has been spared.
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