The legacy of the Fourmile Canyon fire that began last September is still being felt in Boulder.
The fire burned roughly 6,000 acres and became the costliest wildfire in Colorado history.
The fire began around 10 a.m. on Sept. 6 and wasn’t fully contained until Sept. 16. The cost of fighting the blaze, which was five miles west of downtown Boulder, cost more than $10 million and required the efforts of hundreds of people.
Gaby Diaz, a 22-year-old environmental science senior, is a member of the student group CU Wild and said she had a fellow club member lose his home.
“He had just moved here a few weeks before it happened. He lost everything,” Diaz said. “Our group came together and got him boots and a new camera. There has definitely been a wave of community after that happened and helped out those who needed it.”
Diaz said after the blaze, her friend has managed to remain positive.
“He looked at it from a very positive perspective,” Diaz said. “He’s like ‘I had all this crap with me, and that was one way to get rid of it’.”
Mike Chard, director of the Boulder Office of Emergency Management, said that 169 structures were destroyed, the bulk of them homes.
“There were a few [injuries], but they were very minor in nature,” Chard said. “Thank God, no fatalities or serious injuries as a result of the fire.”
Dave Booton, emergency services sergeant for the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, said the fire was the most costly blaze in Colorado history.
Beyond what it took to suppress the fire, estimates of home and property damage exceeded $216 million, he said.
The fire was human-caused, but the Boulder County district attorney chose not to bring charges, Booton said.
“We couldn’t prove that the person knowingly and recklessly started the blaze,” Booton said. “It was more of an accidental type of thing. The party knew what had happened, and he persecuted himself.”
Joe Smyth, professor of geological sciences at CU, said he lost his Gold Hill home in the fire.
Smyth said he found himself living for five months in a basement apartment after his home of 24 years was destroyed.
“An old cast iron wood stove was sitting there among the ashes, but nothing remained, basically,” Smyth said. “I wasn’t there when the fire broke out so I got nothing out.”
Smyth said the fire was unpredictable in the houses it destroyed. Some of his neighbor’s homes were spared, while others were not.
Smyth said he has kept in contact with some of those neighbors as they have all tried to move on with their lives.
“I guess that I’m fairly pleased with the outcome. Right now I’m at my new place. It’s beautiful, it’s great,” Smyth said. “It’s right downtown, so I’m changing my lifestyle from being a hermit in the mountains to being a city person.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Thomas Cuffe at Thomas.cuffe@colorado.edu.
