Is this due to the unusually warm winter?
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Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
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Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#12I live in the neighborhood, but we are just outside of the evacuation zone. This part of Colorado is — in other times — a really nice mixed-use set of communities. It has a lot of open fields, farms, businesses, and “old town” town centers right alongside very dense apartment buildings and single family homes. We haven’t had snow or rain in almost two months, and everything is very dry. I saw the wind bringing flames along these open fields (like kindling) right into Louisville and Superior, and then it lights up the neighborhood, spreading house to house, fueled by wind that has brought down trees and power lines (friends in Boulder getting some rolling blackouts earlier). These nice parks and open fields are like turbo boosts from neighborhood to neighborhood. Any other combination - not as dry, not as windy, and it would have been a small localized fire. Everyone is packing their cars even if outside of the mandatory or pre-evacuation zones. We are supposed to have a massive snowstorm tomorrow morning as well, which makes this very painful - large fires normally burn in loosely populated areas, but this is as dense as any major suburban center.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#13I don’t believe danger is imminent but it is incredible how close this fire is to the former Rocky Flats. This is the second time in as many years I’ve been surprised to see fires close enough to be viewed from the front yard - in exact opposite directions. I’m at the N Boulder rec center with my partner (a reporter) covering this for the NYT. Thankfully it seems quiet and the wind is dying down. Pray for snow!
Didn’t they confirm over 600 homes burned? And the entire towns of Louisville and Superior evacuated (as well as a big hospital - Avista). That seems dangerous to me!
I am in Boulder too and I think the comment means, imminent in Boulder proper. But you are of course right, this is a horrifying thing happening right now for many people just a few miles away.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#14Is this due to the unusually warm winter?
I'm not a Coloradan, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Boulder on my trip this summer... It's the end of December and apparently there's no snow (!!?) at 5000ft in Colorado? Insane.
We've gotten snow, and it's not unusual for 5000ft to not have snow right now (that's even lower elevation than boulder proper), but it's way less total snow than we normally have gotten by now. That being said, it's also pretty normal for a la nina year to be light on precipitation early in the winter, and we get it all during the spring.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#15Is this due to the unusually warm winter?
I'm not a Coloradan, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Boulder on my trip this summer... It's the end of December and apparently there's no snow (!!?) at 5000ft in Colorado? Insane.
The overall dryness is not normal, but Denver/Boulder does not generally have snow on the ground consistently in winter. (Up in the mountains is obviously a different story).
The joke in Denver is sometimes that the city's snow plowing plan for the sidestreets appears to be "wait for it to melt" ....which works most of the time. Even in January the average day is over 45F, which combined with the sunny climate often makes short work of snow.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#16I live in the neighborhood, but we are just outside of the evacuation zone. This part of Colorado is — in other times — a really nice mixed-use set of communities. It has a lot of open fields, farms, businesses, and “old town” town centers right alongside very dense apartment buildings and single family homes. We haven’t had snow or rain in almost two months, and everything is very dry. I saw the wind bringing flames…
Here’s a good visual of that in action: https://twitter.com/ShaulTurner/status/1476722513195405315?s... #
But really, any #MarshallFire twitter post right now.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#17Is this due to the unusually warm winter?
I'm not a Coloradan, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Boulder on my trip this summer... It's the end of December and apparently there's no snow (!!?) at 5000ft in Colorado? Insane.
Lifelong Boulderite here. No snow on the ground is very typical during winter. If it does snow, it often doesn't stick around for very long since Colorado gets a lot of sunshine. However, it has still been unusually dry. Fires have been getting worse and worse every year, but always during the summer and fall months. I've never seen anything like this during winter in my whole life.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#18Here is a photo of the current situation from central boulder. The 100mph wind gusts caused the fire to jump dozens of times.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn’t they confirm over 600 homes burned? And the entire towns of Louisville and Superior evacuated (as well as a big hospital - Avista). That seems dangerous to me!
I am in Boulder too and I think the comment means, imminent in Boulder proper. But you are of course right, this is a horrifying thing happening right now for many people just a few miles away.
I meant imminent to the Rocky Flats area. Of course all the buildings were razed, but I would assume it wouldn't be a Good Thing for that place to also be on fire.
Re: Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
#20I had the pleasure of evacuating twice from this fire (Superior, then Broomfield).
80mph+ wind gusts are crazy, and it's impossible to contain the fire until the wind dies down.