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 ...
“..5mph.”
Awesome!
“I’m sorry but the power company is to blame ....”
No, the people who put their houses in stupid places are to blame. Same goes with floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, Places that get deep snow, places without water, Bad city neighborhoods, etc.
I watched Live Fox News 31 which showed live motion pictures of the grass fires. Any one with a garden hose with a power nozzle could have put out the grass fire. Everyone was ordered to evacuate. There were zero humans to put the grass fires out. And then the grass fires reached the houses and the houses were slowly burned to nothingness. A massive amount of destruction could have been avoided if the homeowners had been allowed to use garden hoses to spray the small flames. In other cases it was trees blown over by high winds and the fallen trees snapped off power lines which sparked the fires. Trees should not be allowed to hang around with power lines. The 6 month drought caused massive areas to be ultra dry…yet zero attempts were made to bulldoze fire breaks into the open area grass lands. And then the winds came. A recipe for disaster.
It’s not horrible......it’s a lovely town, quaint, upscale, expensive, historic, at the foothills of the Flatirons
“It’s not horrible......it’s a lovely town, quaint, upscale, expensive, historic, at the foothills of the Flatirons”
And full of all the people I dislike.
I think that this was mostly a grasslands fire. They have been aggressively managing the forests in the foothills. We were just out there and lots of work has been done since the fires in 2020. But it is extremely dry and even politicians cannot control the wind.
You say Boulder must be horrible. Boulder is in fact one of the most beautiful towns in America. The problem with Boulder is the people who live there. Condescending elitists hypocrites. Yet, if you don’t have to talk to any of them, you will find Boulder and the Western section of the Boulder Valley to be an incredible place to visit. Boulder Creek, Ebin G Fine Park, Settlers Park, Pearl Street Mall, The Flatirons, the Mork and Mindy house and the surrounding neighborhood, seriously the place is awesome. It is just the attitudes of the snobs who live there. Otherwise, the town is close to perfection.
Morning,
Sue’s niece lives in Broomfield, about 5 mi. east of the fire. Winds are predicted as fairly lite and from east.
Standard practice in much of Boulder was to tape west facing
windows to keep the chards from flying. I think Table Mesa
recorded something over 160 mph in the 70’s. A friend of my folks had a (decorative) 3 foot concrete wall blow over.
“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. “
Don’t forget the Forest Service.
How is having a backup generator wasteful? And with a screen name like "Think free or die" I would think that you'd support a person taking responsibility for themselves as a positive. Guess you don't really believe in that.
Couldn’t see the Houses for the Trees ?
Sounds rational but was impossible. The winds were above 50mph. Ever tried to use a garden hose in those winds with a fire approaching at that speed?
Then there is the issue with power. A water pump needs electricity to run. I think power was shut off at a certain point. Embers caused certain houses to burn. How does one water a roof in those winds?
If there were no winds, a lot of houses could have been saved.
This was a no win situation. Very sad.
I was on the phone yesterday with a friend in CO. Her husband has a business not far from Boulder. He called her to ask where was the fire. It was so smoky he couldn't see and he was far from the fire.
This was a freak fire.
The problem with grass fires is complex, but a large part of the problem is invasive annual grasses which dry out quickly and form a fine dense mat of highly combustible material. They call it cheat grass, or “grassoline” and it has been the source of fuel for some seriously major fires in the Western states.
Now this hell in the winter???
Hurricane force winds blew down power lines that started the fire.
It is a liberal utopia.
Those fires were in KANSAS
error.
147, not 160
FOR YEARS-—ENVIROS refused to allow trees to be trimmed
You’re probably right. I was just venting against the Democrats. It probably WAS their fault, one way or the other! [/s]
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