Posted on 12/31/2021 4:54:22 AM PST by Scarlett156
Hundreds of homes burned and tens of thousands of people were evacuated after a rare wind-driven wildfire tore through suburban neighborhoods in Colorado on Thursday, authorities said.
Gov. Jared Polis declared a state of emergency in the area, calling the blaze — which ballooned to 1,600 acres in a few hours amid 100-mph winds — “absolutely devastating.”
After toppled power lines started the grass fire around 11 a.m. south of Boulder, the flames quickly spread through the towns of Louisville and Superior, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said during a news conference.
“This was consuming football field lengths of land in seconds,” Pelle said. “This was a horrific event.”
No deaths or missing persons had been reported, though he said he wouldn’t be “surprised if we find casualties.” One police officer was injured by flying debris, he said.
By 5 p.m., the fire had incinerated an entire subdivision of 370 homes in Superior and likely destroyed another 210 homes in the community’s old town neighborhood, he said. A hotel burned, a shopping center was in flames and the blaze was blocks from a hospital.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
This is the same area that the state record of 141 MPH wind occurred several years ago. There have been several large fires in the area. 400,000 acres burned recently just north with the wind driving the fire 17 miles in one day.
They have to think out of the box and prevent the spread...maybe some kind of asbestos like matting along the path?? I don't know what would be practical. Or maybe stop the overhead electric...period. They've done that in my area...and there are less outage problems.
Or use the obvious alternative....natural gas....gas stoves, gas heat etc etc...it's all underground.
Boulder is only 10 miles from Louisville.....University of Colorado is in Boulder
We lived in that area for a while......both towns are historic, quaint towns,
We attended church in Louisville
We got use to high winds in Colorado....but this ‘thing’ was 100 miles per hour......and fast reaching.
My husband and I remarked it sounded Biblical....
Perhaps 100 or more folks were in a Lowe’s type place ....
...everything normal when they went in......but suddenly they were told to evacuate and walked out to thick smoke
Some folks only had mere minutes or seconds to escape
Alicia Acuna ....Fox reporter.....lives there, as well as other family members
Her husbands new restaurant caught fire and they don’t know if their homes survived
Devastating!
“Can’t blame that on a power company.”
I’m sorry but the power company is to blame if it turns out it was a power related incident. PG&E in California has been held responsible for several major fires for failure to clear the trees off their lines and improperly maintained equipment. Now if the weather forecast has winds over certain mile-per-hour rating PG&E shuts the power off, inconvenient, but better than having your house burn down.
Nearly 600 homes have been destroyed in the #MarshallFire – along with hotels, shopping centers and businesses. The fire had burned 1,600 acres and was still growing Thursday night.
The most destructive wildfire in Colorado history was the Black Forest Fire. It burned more than 14,280 acres and destroyed 511 homes in 2013. The two fires on Thursday have already destroyed at least 580 homes in only 1,600 acres.
The wind has been pretty out of control, that’s for sure. It’s not all that unusual for it to be windy, whether in the mountains or on the plain - but this! The power flickered on and off all day long where I live, then went out for several hours just as the sun set.
Yeah that’s a huge amount of damage. I typically say bad things about Boulder, which is where all the hippies live, but I’m withholding those remarks today.
Insurance companies will typically give discounts if your home has fire inhibitor stuff installed, like sprinklers, etc. Other than that, I blame Democrat governors for a lot of the wildfires that have occurred in Colorado in the last 20+ years - not this one, where the power lines went down. Democrats intentionally mismanage forests and wild lands in the name of “ecology,” not clearing away deadwood and looking the other way when Mexican cartels grow pot on public lands - and pocketing taxpayer dollars instead of using them to maintain and police the forests.
Wow. Yeah, it didn’t just destroy property but caused a lot of chaos. And it’s still going!
Power was cut to more than 34,000 Xcel customers in the Superior and Louisville Thursday afternoon and evening, officials reported.
Interesting. Thank you!
I think there will be about 1,000 homes & businesses gone.
I don’t think any homes were lost in the city of Boulder. It was Louisville and Superior that took the brunt of the fires.
They’re expecting snow to start this morning and continue throughout the day
Boulder was not touched. The damage is all in superior and Louisville
Our son lives in Boulder and saw the fire in its very early stages when it was still a grass fire. He went outside for lunch and from his workplace at the base of the flatirons he saw the brush fire in the 'greenbelt'. He climbed up a nearby mesa for a better look and spoke with a police officer who told him about the power lines starting the fire.
He lives west of the resulting catastrophe. He said he couldn't understand why Boulder still has overhead power lines given the periodic high winds and arid climate. If ever there were a place that should bury them, it's Boulder. There are overhead power lines running up into the mountains west of Boulder as well, which caused him some anxiety last night. There would have been no way for firefighters to protect the university or other structures in Boulder if a line had sparked another fire west of town.
I've often thought we should bury the power lines in our mid-Atlantic area as well. We are very vulnerable to ice storms and tropical storm remnants. Our heavy tree canopy drops limbs on power lines in winter, and entire trees uproot during tropical storms. It's a recipe for constant line repair. We're grateful that we don't have Boulder's fire hazards, but power outages are common here. Lots of homeowners have backup generators. Very wasteful, to say nothing of being ugly.
It will take a massive amount of snow to significantly slow this monster down. That said any slowing at all will give the agencies time to catch up and develop some plans to fight back. Need to get the wind speed down to under 20 miles per hour. Anything over 35 mph windspeed you can’t successfully fight a wildland fire.
Best wishes and prayers to all involved in this tragic event.
There was a video circulating yesterday of parents with children at a pizza restaurant - Chuck E. Cheese - realizing that there were flames outside the building and then running for their lives to escape. They had trouble pushing the door open because the wind was so strong, and once finally outside it was very smoky. I don’t know if the restaurant is still there.
You bet :)
They’re expecting 5 or 6 inches, but right now the wind is only about 5mph
When I was in college, some of the other students were what I would call “Technology Carpetbaggers”. They would form groups of homo buddies (no girl friends) and systematically steal ideas from professors and other students, then try to start little companies to develop and sell the ideas. It seemed like their goal was to make enough money to more to Boulder, as many did. I’ve never been to Boulder. It must be horrible.
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