#marshall fire

Don't be sad, Mommy, I beep for you!

Please consider donating to the relief: https://www.commfound.org/grants/get-grant/Boulder-County-Wildfire-Fund

Luckily some of my stuff is back in my dorm at school but most of my winter clothes, all of my memorabilia, artworks, credit cards, important documents, laptop, and all the other things you just have in your home are completely gone, along with the rest of my parents’ and 3 younger siblings’ belongings.

We also were unable to get our two cats out in time (when we left there were flames just about touching our house) and so they’re most likely gone as well, which has been the worst part for us.

My aunt set up a gofundme for us, if you can even donate a little or just share it, it really would make such a difference for us. Thank you and I’m sending so much love out to anyone who sees this post 💕💕

https://gofund.me/1639415b

We've had no snow since spring. No rain. Everything is dry as a bone; all it took was a day of bad wind and one downed power line, and here we are. The irony is that it's snowing today, finally. One day too late for our city, but hopefully it'll help prevent more wildfires elsewhere in Colorado.

My family and pets and friends are all okay, which is a huge relief. My family had enough time to grab a few sentimental items, and in that sense we're fortunate. I'm grateful for that. There are no people missing or dead. I'm grateful for that too.

But there is still so much to grieve. It all happened so quickly, I don’t even know how to begin processing this.

Content warnings for gun violence, climate change, and wildfires.

My home region has had an absolutely horrible week. Monday, a gunman carried out a horrific spree of premeditated murders, killing five and wounding more. The victims were previous coworkers at a tattoo collective and a hotel clerk that he did not know. He wounded a policewoman who returned fire and killed him. His victims also included a latina tattoo artist and muralist, an indigenous latina activist and spiritualist, and he attempted to kill an entire family who run a tattoo parlor now out of their home.

How this man had access to guns is beyond me (I mean, it’s the USA so yeah, he had access, but it’s so fucking broken). He had been ‘investigated’ by the Denver Police in 2020 and 2021, possibly for the novels he self-published under a pseudonym in which a protagonist with his legal name hunted down and killed people with the SAME NAME as his victims in their homes. He wrote novels about him doing exactly what he wanted to do, and then did those things. Again, he should not have had access to guns after that. There should be laws that would allow actions like that to empower law enforcement to confiscate weapons and make sure he could not buy more.

And then, yesterday. December 30, high winds came through preceding a storm system that would deliver only the second snowstorm of the season to Colorado’s Front Range (the area east of the Rocky Mountains, typically describing the area from Pueblo to Fort Collins, CO). For context, this is incredibly not-normal. We have had an abnormally warm and dry fall and winter so far. Growing up, it was normal to have first snowfall of the year in September or October, and I have known many halloween nights with fresh snow on the ground. This year, the first snow of the year for the front range did not come until mid-December and only left a light dusting of snow. 

This new storm is still incoming and is supposed to deliver several inches, but yesterday December 30, what is likely downed power lines sparked several grass fires near the towns of Superior and Louisville, CO. High winds, sustained speeds near 50 mph and gusts up to 110 mph spread the fire incredibly quickly. Within hours, the towns were evacuated and structures were catching fire. Firefighters couldn’t do anything but evacuate people because the winds were too strong and unpredictable. Air support for the fire was also impossible with the winds. 

In less than six hours the fire became the most destructive fire to humans in Colorado history. Literally hundreds of homes and businesses have burned to the ground. My parents evacuated to my house, and then the pre-evacuation zones got too close for comfort to our house, so we packed up impossible and difficult to replace things and we all drove up to another friend’s house further from the fire. My home is fine, I’m writing from there, and while we don’t know for sure, my parent’s home is probably fine, but I and my family spent hours yesterday thinking that the home I grew up in was going to go down in flames. However, there are already people we know who we also know for sure their homes are completely gone. The homes in Superior, Louisville, and Marshall that remain have no heat, and a boil-water order for the near future. Thousands of people who woke up yesterday morning planning their New Years Eve and thinking about the impending snowstorm are now homeless, with everything they own turned to ashes. Many people were at work, or on vacation, and had zero chance to make it to their home to rescue what they had. It has been absolutely heartbreaking looking at the aftermath. The fires are contained and will likely be extinguished soon, but entire neighborhoods have been razed. This is the direct result of climate change 

The single bright spot is that there has only been one hospitalization so far, a police officer who was struck by debris from the winds, and no recorded fatalities. There was only one missing person report so far, and that person has been located. It’s amazing that there has not been more loss of life.

If you’ve read this far, you’re amazing. Please be gentle to each other. If you want to and are able to help, you can donate to:

Boulder County Wildfire Fund

American Red Cross, Colorado Region Chapters

Following the Marshall fire in Boulder County, Colorado, I started wondering about the massive forest preserve that exists less than one block to the west of our house in suburban Chicago. We had a fairly serious drought this past spring and early summer; the forest was crispy dry. People start fires in the picnic meadow in the preserve and others make campfires throughout the forest “just for fun” all the time. One of those “just for fun” campfires could ignite larger parts of the forest on a windy day, and with the prevailing winds from the west, poof, there goes our neighborhood. Additionally, two of our neighbors create large fires in their backyards, particularly as enhancements to their weed recreation, without paying attention to them, and that could also cause a problem. So, we don’t need giant dead trees and mountains and canyons to get in trouble right here.

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

The Marshall Fire ultimately burned some 6,200 acres, destroying at least 1,084 homes and seven commercial structures, before it was largely smothered by a New Year’s Eve snowfall. On Wednesday, investigators reported they had found partial human remains assumed to be those of one of the two people still missing after the fire. Insured losses are estimated at about $1 billion, making it Colorado’s most destructive fire on record in terms of property loss.

In the days since the fire, Veblen said he’s had many conversations with neighbors and friends, some feeling a combination of survivor’s guilt and post traumatic stress disorder, and all wondering how worried they should be about wildfires burning into suburbia in the future.

few residents of rapidly expanding suburbs in which most of the vegetation has been planted by homeowners and developers realize that they are living in an expanding “Wildland Urban Interface,” or WUI, in which wildfires can threaten their homes and lives. In some areas with little natural vegetation, wooden fences and decks, wood-framed houses, flammable roofs and landscaping are the biggest source of fuel, which can burn down into glowing chunks that are lofted by high winds to help a fire hopscotch through neighborhoods.

“It’s clear the climate change is increasing the likelihood of these types of events,” said University of Montana fire ecologist Phil Higuera, who is currently a visiting fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying the relative influence of climate, vegetation and human activity on wildfire trends.

“What I don’t want to see is a reaction of, ‘Oh, this is such an extreme event that we can’t do anything about it,’” he said. “Yes, this fire was very bad luck, but we shouldn’t be rolling the dice with fire in December.”

Yet research, including a landmark 2019 study of fire weather indices, shows that global warming is loading those dice for more winter fires. Warmer temperatures and decreasing precipitation increasingly leave fuels like trees and brush tinder dry late in autumn and early winter, and increase the probability that snow-free Decembers will leave grasses, decks and roofs uncovered and vulnerable to wind-driven sparks and embers that could ignite them.

What used to be the start of the season that brought snow to the West and cool, rainy conditions to many other parts of the country is now sometimes more like late summer. Even if global warming didn’t ignite the Marshall Fire, “there really is a seasonality change that is the main climate factor,” said UCLA climate researcher Daniel Swain, who studies extremes like fires and floods. “Usually by this time of year, there is just more moisture on the ground.”