As if there wasn't Enough Going On

Everything Else
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The ones near Boulder - Calwood and Lefthand Canyon fires, are contained fairly well, and evacuated residents are being allowed back in much of the areas surrounding the burn. This of course Is not as happy for the people who lost their homes entirely. At least 20+, last I heard.

Other fires are still causing issues. East Troublesome is coming toward Estes Park (where Spyman is) from the west – he may have had to evac last night. It is now the 2nd largest in CO history, with the largest, Cameron Peak just north of him. Estes Park is just to the right of where it says “Rocky Mountain National Park” in this graphic.

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We’re still here in Estes Park, although we’re packed and ready to go should the need arise. The fire is stalled in Rocky Mt. Nat’l Park and its path was slowed by a tiny bit of moisture and below-freezing temperatures Thursday night. Our main concern is the prediction of high winds tonight and tomorrow. Starting tomorrow night and Sunday we’re supposed to get a foot of snow. That will help tremendously! Right now we’re under voluntary evacuation orders, but if it changes to mandatory, we’re ready to go.
Thanks, everyone, for your concern!

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Some current info:

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Some encouraging news on the fires today:

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Fire zones are on tap for 12" - 18". Maybe more. It won’t solve the problem, but it will sure help.

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A RMNP-centric report. The local-to-Boulder Calwood and Lefthand Canyon fires are well controlled, but the Big Ones continue.

From last week - some old news at this point, but good info:

org/2020/10/22/926838887/colorado-fire-grows-by-over-100-000-acres-in-1-day-hits-rocky-mountain-national-

A more recent article. There have been deaths - a couple in their 80’s elected to stay in their home:

A map of the East Troublesome Creek fire. If you keep this URL and refresh it, periodically it will be updated. It is scalable.

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Progressively scaling in:

Here are the fires in this neck of the woods at the moment:

I was pretty freaked out when our “little” local (to Boulder) Calwood fire went from nothing to 7,000 acres in a day…while the newer East Troublesome fire (left side of this map) grew 100,000 acres in a day.

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What follows are in the red-highlighted area in the above map. Which is to say the Estes Park area, where spyman007 lives. So - hundreds of thousands of burned/burning acres are NOT visible in the following maps, to give a sense of the scale of this.

RMNP from Grand Lake to Estes Park:

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Just the upper quadrant of that. The road snaking across the top is Trail Ridge Road. If you’ve ever visited the Park, you likely drove it.

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A Google map roughly corresponding to the above map.

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The road across the top is Trail Ridge Road, with Estes Park upper right. The road to Bear Lake runs east and south of the smaller area of the East Troublesome fire approaching Estes Park. So those are basically the places I shot the video I posted last spring (along with a million other visitors to the Park🙄).

So, in the video:

  1. First shot was from heading back home down Trail Ridge, west of Estes Park looking south. So pretty sure parts of what’s behind me are Moraine Park, and now on fire.

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  2. Lower left in the above maps are Bear Lake (which is the second shot in the video) and Alberta Falls (flagged in red) is the falls in the video. The falls are part of Glacier Creek, which runs mostly north, so the mountain in the background at the beginning of that sequence should be Mt Wuh. Which is on fire.

Looking north from Alberta Falls to Mt. Wuh.

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  1. The last shot in the video is from the Lava Cliffs area up west on Trail Ridge Road, looking back southeast (this part of Trail Ridge road is off the top of the larger RMNP map above). So the fire is affecting the area behind me in this shot as well.

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And this is merely a small corner of the Second Largest fire in CO history, with the Largest off these maps to the north.

Mark

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Mark:
Thank-you for sharing the update and the good news that the Calwood fire is under control. Hoping for calm air and some much needed precipitation.

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We did get snow, as Howard noted, though a foot of snow is maybe equivalent to only an inch of rain - which is not much. These large fires are very, very hot, and though the cold and snow helps, it is not expected to put the fires out. It does give the firefighters a bit of a break. They are what I would call Actual Strong People vs. those who like to act as if they were.

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Yeah, I know - stupid Flatlander bought firewood last year! Don’t worry, I’m not using it. Though it adds that mountain-y vibe to things to have a pile sitting around.

Actually more concerned for California, as here in CO things will continue to get colder and wetter, while a lot of CA will remain warm and dry through the winter, so many of those fires may just continue.

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Thank you for the detailed update.

I look forward to the report that it is over.

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A suggestion, you probably don’t want to store wood right next to your house. It’s not for “fire danger reasons”. I had firewood stored next to my house. It attracted ants. The ants got into the wood framing of my house and caused some damage.

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Thanks, good thinking. Not my house, but a rental :man_shrugging:t2: I had thought when I dragged it over from the last place that I’d be using it up last winter…

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Hi all! I thought I would bring you up to date about what’s happening around here, if you care. We had to leave under mandatory evacuation orders at 5:40 Saturday morning…one of those “get out now,” phone and text messages. Fortunately, we had most of our things ready to go, so we hurriedly got dressed, grabbed the dogs and got out. I can’t describe the feeling when we left, knowing we might not see our house standing when we got back. The trip down the mountain wasn’t nearly as crowded as the day before when most of the town left. Unfortunately, when we got to the Red Cross center in Loveland, we found out that they had no rooms left. However, we were able to stay with friends and everything worked out great. We got the notice that mandatory orders had been reduced to voluntary Sunday and we could go back if we wanted to. The western third of town is still under mandatory orders. Home never looked so good!

As for the fire, it’s still not under control, but the 18” of snow that fell in the area practically stopped it from moving any closer to town. But, we’re not out of the woods yet. There’s no rain or snow in the forecast for the next week and this thing could get moving again when things dry out. But, it’s cold and that helps too. It was 8 below when we got up this morning! We’ll still have to keep an eye on it and keep things ready to throw back in the car.

And guess what? The system is on and sounding great!

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And now today we find out the post office is closed and we have to drive to Loveland (about a 45 minute drive one way) to get our mail! Safeway is open, but the post office is closed. Something is screwy here!:flushed:
Rumor has it that they will be closed until the fire is out. What’s next?

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Lot of that going around.

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A significant bother.

One of many headaches the fires are causing.

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Speaking of CA - my sister in law and husband had to evac from their house in Foothill Ranch, CA, southeast of Irvine. This was the other day from their backyard. The fire came to the neighbor’s backyard across the street.

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Hi … It’s not so much we hear more about fire in the US in our country’s news. I hope in all have survived and that your home etc has not been damaged. Take good care of each other.

Michael/Denmark

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I know I’m late to this thread, and I hope all went well.

But now I finally know where you got the handle @badbeef

:grinning:

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