The Winter Fire: Burn Scar Part 1
The aftermath of the Marshall Fire burnt down Ariel Lavery’s childhood home in Boulder County. Credit: Ariel Lavery.
December 30, 2021, Podcaster Ariel Lavery’s parents are forced to flee as Boulder’s Marshall Fire bears down. Later, her mom returns to find their house burned down. “The fire was so hot that a lot of it just crumpled and exploded.” It’s the most expensive fire in Colorado History. Listen now.
The Winter Fire
It was just before Christmas in 2021 and I was anchoring All Things Considered for our local NPR radio station, Wyoming Public Radio. I was getting my next newscast ready when it came on over the airwaves: a wild fire was burning right into the suburbs of a major Colorado city, Boulder. I was like,“Wait, what? It’s wintertime!” I remember cranking up the volume and hanging on every word.
I have good friends who live there and I was afraid for them. How could this be? It’s a community surrounded by prairie. Don’t get me wrong, growing up in the American West, I’m used to fires. I remember as a kid winning a drawing contest of Woodsy the Owl, part of a campaign to teach kids not to start forest fires. That was the era of fire suppression, when all forest fires were considered bad. On TV, Smokey the Bear had a message for us: “Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.”
But it was a wetter, cooler time, too. Forest fires rarely got out of hand. The biggest one I remember was the Yellowstone Fire of 1988 that burned almost 800,000 acres. That felt like such a rare and historic event that my dad actually made a pilgrimage north to witness it with his own eyes. These days, fires that big are happening more regularly.
In 2020, the year the pandemic roared through humanity, fires also roared through the mountains. Climbing a mountain one day, my dad actually witnessed the first wisps of smoke that went on to become Colorado’s largest fire in history – the Cameron Peak Fire, over 200,000 acres. Then, the East Troublesome Fire blazed up in the mountains just south of my parents’ house in Walden, Colorado. My mom sent a video of a giant billowing black cloud of smoke filling her mountain valley.
It was one of Colorado’s most destructive fires, burning down 400 buildings. So those were all happening less than an hour from where I live in Laramie. Meanwhile, a huge fire broke out in our mountains too – the Mullen Fire, over 175,000 acres. With all those fires, there was so much smoke we couldn’t leave our homes for weeks. The only thing that put all those fires out finally? Snow. You could almost hear those snowflakes hiss when they started to fall.
And now this fire the very next year was actually breaking out in the wintertime. Over the next few days, I hung on every word about the Marshall Fire. Laramie is surrounded by grasslands too. Could my home be in danger like so many of the Marshall Fire victims?
In the police footage, you can hear how little people know about how to deal with a fire bearing down. You can hear that a police officer knows the threat is so imminent, that locking a fire victim’s house up won’t change the fact that it’s going to burn down. It just goes to show how unprepared we all are for these kinds of extreme fires. The fire led to trauma for everyone involved. In one of the videos that the police collected, one officer helps evacuate a woman who only speaks Spanish, and she’s having trouble breathing.
In the news, people told of losing their homes, whole neighborhoods, and their livelihoods. This fire set a new standard of thought among wildland fire experts about the threat of a whole new kind of fire – urban wildfires. It was heartbreaking to hear their voices and their anger, because these were people who weren’t afraid to connect the dots. This winter grassland fire wasn’t normal, they said. This was human-caused climate change. And it wasn’t just on their doorstep. It was burning their door down.
There was another way I learned about the aftermath of the Marshall Fire. I was following the social media posts of a friend of mine, Ariel Lavery. Ariel is a fellow podcaster, and in the days and weeks and months after the fire, she gave me a window into how her family was deeply and irrevocably affected by it. This season of The Modern West, I’m going to let Ariel tell you her story of how this one fire devastated her family’s way of life and how, like fireweed that blooms in a burn scar, this fire is helping them find a new way of living and loving each other.
Daylilies sprouting amidst the rubble. Credit: Ariel Lavery.
Ariel’s Story
It’s December 30, 2021 and my husband and I and our two small children are driving back to Kentucky from my childhood home in Colorado, where we visit every year for the holidays. We want our girls to have a connection to the vastness of the western landscape, to know the awe the mountains inspire in us. It’s just after lunch, and we’re about to cross over the Kansas-Missouri border when my Mom sends an alarming text to the family thread.
It’s a video; all I can hear in it is something about where the fires are. Then, Mom sends another text that says, “A hundred mile an hour winds today, three fires in BOCO due to downed power lines. Not a good day for walking Jesse.” Jesse is my Mom’s goldendoodle.
I ask my mom, and all my family to record their texts from this day. “Can’t really even hear my narrative. Smoke is coming our way,” Mom texts again.
In the video, Mom is standing on the walking path at the top of the hill on Davidson Mesa, right behind my childhood home. She’s looking southwest toward the mountains. A huge plume of smoke billows in the distance. It appears to be emerging from the valley on the other side of the mesa.
I text, “Are those fires in Boulder???”
“At Marshall Road and Cherryvale,” Mom texts.
In Mom’s video, the stunning view of the Front Range is partially blocked by smoke. It looks to be filling the sky in front of her.
I’m A Good Daughter, Even 2,000 Miles Away
It’s 12:47 pm Colorado time. We’re about to drive through Kansas City when another text from Mom comes in: “Boulder EOM says evacuate if you see flames. Only smoke so far.”
My anxiety about natural disaster events has spiked with my increased awareness of the climate crisis, plus, some horrifying disaster events that have hit Kentucky lately. Just three weeks ago, the Tri-State Tornado tore across 219 miles, decemating communities. One of those was just 30 minutes north of our town of Murray, Kentucky. And while I’ve learned more about severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, my mom has been learning more about wildfires. Last year, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires, the two largest wildfires in Colorado history, burned up huge swaths of forest near my parents’ mountain house. Then, just this past summer, we were staying there when a few small fires started nearby. I remember the afternoon sun turning an eerie sunset hue.
I text Mom back with something that seems helpful: “Maybe start packing now! Just in case.”
The guilt I’ve felt at not being able to help has grown since my dad’s diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia a few years ago. I usually attempt to help from afar by sending suggestions and reassurance for mom, but she never really seems to need me. She’s always done everything on her own. She’s a rock - no - a dandelion growing out from under a rock. She’s carried the weight of raising three kids while developing a demanding career as an anesthesiologist. And she has thrived despite the crushing pressure, muscling her way up to the sunlight. But knowing all this never satisfies the constant pull to be back there as a full time family member.
I send a list of things to remember like computers, wallet, phone, Dad’s medication, and of course, my mom’s bike.
Mom would lament forgetting the new ebike she built, possibly her most prized possession at the moment. She’s always had projects like this. Lots of bikes, gardening supplies, skiing equipment, and becoming vegan. She initially became vegan for personal health reasons that have since become a source of pride at helping fight against the climate crisis. There’s 33 years worth of a life lived in our house.
It’s now 1:19 pm Colorado time. We’re stuck in traffic, making slow progress into Kansas City. I haven’t heard anything in a few minutes.
“Have you seen fire?” I text Mom in the group chat.
“No,” she texts back. “Just smoke but wind is coming right at us.”
“Do you have the alert that was sent out?” My brother, Andrew, texts. “Can you send a screenshot? Looking at a map it almost looks impossible for it to reach The Enclave.”
He sends the map link for fire updates, and I see what he’s talking about. The fire started out in Marshall, a tiny community located on the other side of the Davidson mesa. That’s about 3 and a half miles from The Enclave, our small idyllic neighborhood I grew up in. The fire would have to burn up the hill, across fields, jump a four lane highway, and then more fields to get anywhere near our neighborhood. I know mountain fires that burn dry timber can travel over huge acreage but, grass fires? On the map, I see that the fire is pushing into the town of Superior. There is a shopping center there we frequent with a Target and a Whole Foods. Is the fire actually in this shopping center? I wonder if the smoke from this fire is visible where Andrew is. He lives in the outskirts of Denver with his pregnant wife. They moved out of the city and bought a house in Englewood a couple years ago. Just like me, he’s worked toward homeownership and starting a family.
It’s Real
It’s now 2:10 Colorado time.
My little family has driven through Kansas City and are just pulling out of a service station, when Mom sends another text: “Fire outside. We’re evacuating.”
“Oh my God, ” My brother Andrew texts.
“Little bushes in the median,” Mom says.
Little bushes in the median are burning? The fire is there? Where are my parents? My brother’s reaction – he doesn’t react like that. This is bad. What am I doing driving away from my family right now? We’ve crossed the Missouri border. We should go back. We should turn around. How will I be able to help from this far away?
A few minutes later, 2:17 pm Colorado time, Mom texts, “East on s Boulder rd. Sheriff said go north or east.”
Mom sends a picture of the line of cars she’s sitting in on South Boulder Rd. From her previous text it seems like it’s the only way out of town for dozens of neighborhoods. Tens of thousands of people will end up getting evacuated. Many of them need to leave on this one road. In her photo, smoke is streaming across the sky over the traffic. I will later learn that all those people trying to evacuate were frustrated and scared as they sat in traffic, because of a train crossing South Boulder Road.
“One of my tennis friends said we could go to her house,” Mom texts the group.
“Ok, glad you have a place to go,” says my sister, Katie.
Katie is back in California. I don’t know if she got Mom’s earlier texts. Today is Katie’s birthday – she’s turning 27.
Mom finds out they can’t go to her tennis friend’s house after all because her friend discovered her son has COVID. The evacuation is made trickier because of my parents’ age and my Dad’s condition. He was diagnosed three years ago with Lewy Body Dementia and since the diagnosis, we’ve seen a steady decline in his cognitive and physical functioning. I’ve been paranoid about his susceptibility to catching COVID. Where can they go that’s safe in the midst of a pandemic and massive evacuation? Thankfully, Mark and Laurie, lifelong family friends, offer their house. Mark has Parkinsons and their house is outfitted with helpful tools. I feel a little better, but Mom and Dad aren’t out of danger yet.
“Any updates? You guys safe?” I text the group chat.
“Trying to find gas,” Mom texts back. “Lots of areas with no electricity.”
Everything is Burning
Now, it’s 3:30 pm Colorado time. My family checks into our hotel room in Columbia, Missouri. My girls are restless, but I’ve barely noticed since I’ve been glued to my parents’ evacuation playing out on my phone. As soon as I get into the hotel room I turn on the television. Almost every national news channel is covering this fire, because it’s unheard of, a wildfire burning right into a Colorado city.
“We are watching the story breaking on the weather channel now. Watching apartment buildings burning. I think it’s behind Costco,” I text the group.
“ I really hope we don’t lose the house,” Mom says.
“It looks like, from the radar map, the particulates are moving almost directly east. It may just miss the Enclave neighborhood,” I text back.
“I sure hope so,” Mom says.
My eyes jump back and forth between the television screen and my phone. I’m trying to match the images of burning homes with the occasionally updated map of the fire’s progress. It’s a desperate attempt to understand exactly where the fire is, and if our neighborhood is burning. Burning homes on the television are unrecognizable and the map is slow to update. I send pictures of the newscasts to see if anything is recognizable to anyone else.
Andrew sends an update, “The new hotel in Superior the element is gone. The other structures around that area are all gone.”
It’s mind boggling. I imagine all of Louisville going up in smoke; the whole city, gone. I think of the historic old miner’s homes and the cute strip of shops downtown. What happens when that disappears in a single afternoon? The fire map shows fire on the mesa and in the surrounding neighborhoods to the west of The Enclave.
“I think house is about to burn. Fire in front and behind,” I text.
“I think you’re right. These winds are driving the fires right through the dry grasslands,” Mom says. “I think neighborhood might be gone since we were right on the mesa.”
The grasslands are where I grew up walking, running, and exploring – and they’re on fire.
My frantic attempt to locate the fire in relation to my parents house is proving fruitless. I ignore the pleas for attention from my children and stay glued to the coverage. Leaving Colorado is always hard, I never want to go back to Kentucky. I don’t want to lose the foundation of who I am and where I came from. But now, that foundation is burning.
It’s 6:17 Colorado time.
“ I think this is going to be a massive heartache for a lot of us. Homes are burning around Harper Lake. Heard third hand the Enclave is not OK,” Mom texts.
“Seems unlikely homes around Harper Lake would burn without the Enclave getting it too,” Katie says.
“Yup, it does. I feel numb,” Mom texts back.
A moment of contemplation: Ariel Lavery's mom surveys the aftermath of the Marshall Fire. Credit: Ariel Lavery.
Around 7:00 pm Colorado time, we get the girls to sleep. I wonder if my parents will be able to sleep tonight. They’ll be staying in Mark and Laurie’s extra bedroom, but in the chaos of the evacuation and being displaced to an unfamiliar bedroom, Dad is confused and he gets up and wanders in the night. Mom wakes up in the wee hours of the morning and finds him laying on the floor, with no idea how long he’s been there.
Over the next 24 hours I realize my parents have become climate refugees, and it’s not just them. Our little family is forced to stay an extra night in this hotel due to an incoming winter weather storm depositing a layer of ice on every surface. My feeling of desperation peaks as we await the fate of my childhood home and the fate of all our futures. When I talk with my brother the next day he says something I’ll never forget: “What is this world I’m about to bring a kid into?”
Rising from the aftermath of the Marshall Fire in Colorado, a solemn blackened tree stretches towards the hopeful embrace of a crisp blue sky. Credit: Ariel Lavery.
It’s now 10:39 pm Colorado time.
“Confirmed that the Hardman’s house is gone. Don’t know anything about ours. Got a Facebook message from Deb Fahey that their place burned,” Mom texts.
My stomach drops. This is the moment I know for certain, our house is gone.
Over the next year our whole family will reevaluate our goals for the future. My relationship with my mom will change to meet the challenges of this new situation. This is a part of the climate crisis we don’t hear a lot about: how it’s remolding families, forcing a reinvention of how we live the American dream.
The next morning at 7:26 am the decision is made:
“All the evacuated areas are still closed to residents and don’t know when they’ll let us in. If our house is gone, Dad and I agree we’re not going to rebuild. It’s too much to do at this point in our lives,” Mom says.
It will be months before I will be able to fly back and witness the devastation to our home.
“The fire was so hot that a lot of it just crumpled and exploded,” says Mom.
All the while, my mom, at 69, will enter a brand new life journey and start looking for a new way to thrive, but the challenges are still many.
“The insurance companies are not your friends, they will never get you the best deal,” Mom says.
That’s next time on The Burn Scar.