Colorado offers so much in terms of opportunities for living the outdoor lifestyle and living with nature. One downside to this is the risk of Colorado wildfires. This risk became a reality a few days ago. I was returning from a mountain bike ride in Breckenridge and as I turned off the highway toward home, I saw a huge plume of smoke in the direction of our house. I immediately called home to see what was going on. Sue was unaware of anything, looked out the window and saw that Elephant Butte was ablaze.
The fire began on the west side of Elephant Butte. Elephant Butte is a prominent part of the foreground of the view of from our deck and is just about 1 mile away from our property. The wind was fairly strong and the fire was spreading quickly, topping the mountain and coming down the east side toward our house.
Fortunately, fire fighting crews with their equipment were quick to arrive on scene. First, one helicopter with a 300 gallon bucket, then 3 other, much larger sky cranes and finally 3 airplane tankers.
The air traffic was quite a site to see, with the helicopters making quick laps between Evergreen Lake and the fire and the airplanes making bigger laps between the airport and the fire.
In the meantime, we were well within the evacuation radius and were prepared to leave. We have a punch list of irreplaceable things that we must take in the event of an emergency. We had it all staged and could be loaded and gone in just a few minutes.
We were in constant contact with friends & neighbors that could see the fire from different angles to mark progress of the fire and ensure good decisions were being made.
Mother nature also stepped in to help with a short deluge of rain.
As darkness fell, the aircraft retreated while firefighters continued working on foot into the night. We could see the glow of the flames and tracked their growth & direction of spread through the night, ready to bug out if we needed to.
In the morning, the smoke had died down significantly and the helicopters picked up where they left off. Throughout the second day of the fire, we could see progress being made by the firefighters who were aided by mother nature kicking in with another heavy rain storm.
The fire continued to smolder for another week, but never spread beyond Elephant Butte. The cause of the fire is still unreported.
