Updated 8:12 p.m. MST Jan. 1, 2022
County authorities have have released a preliminary list of the addresses of structures that were destroyed or damaged in the Marshall Fire southeast of Boulder, Colorado. They described it as partial and incomplete at 2 p.m. January 1, 2022.
From the Denver Gazette, Saturday evening:
Three people are missing and feared dead in the wake of the Marshall fire, the Boulder County sheriff said Saturday [afternoon], and nearly 1,000 structures have been destroyed, making the blaze by far the most destructive in Colorado history.
Two of the three missing persons are in Superior, and the third is in the Marshall area, Sheriff Joe Pelle said. He said the search is likely a recovery one, meaning authorities are looking for remains. The missing people’s homes have been destroyed, he said, and cadaver dogs will be brought in Sunday. The debris and snow have “hampered substantially” efforts to search for the missing.
To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Marshall Fire, including the most recent, click here: https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/marshall-fire/
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Minnie and Pat.
6:12 p.m. MST Jan. 1, 2022
Unlike most states, in Colorado county sheriffs have statutory responsibility to coordinate wildland fire response within their county. Boulder County, the location of the Marshall Fire, has five year-round employees with fire responsibilities. They also hire seasonal firefighters during the traditional wildland fire season.
Saturday afternoon Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle released damage assessment numbers for the 6,000-acre Marshall Fire southeast of Boulder.
Total numbers are 991 structures destroyed and 127 damaged.
Louisville:
Destroyed – 553
Damaged – 45
Superior:
Destroyed – 332
Damaged – 60
Unincorporated Boulder County:
Destroyed: 106
Damaged: 22
The Sheriff did not specify how many of the structures were homes. Therefore, the numbers could include backyard sheds and other small uninhabited buildings.
What caused the Marshall fire?
Boulder County has clarified information that was previously released about the cause of the fire. In a press conference Friday morning, Sheriff Pelle told reporters that someone told fire authorities that there was a downed power line near where the fire started. But origin and cause investigators had not examined the scene, he said, and the specific cause had not been officially confirmed.
Saturday afternoon the Boulder Office of Emergency Management released a statement:
As of last night, no downed power lines had been located in the area [of the origin]. There were some downed telecommunication lines, but these are not likely to have started the blaze. The sheriff did confirm that one search warrant has been obtained, but he declined to release any additional information about the location or reason for the warrant.
In areas along and close to the Front Range the predominant extreme winds come out of the west. Why not build communities aligned more north to south with wide “green spaces” for outdoor recreation, i.e. parks, golf greens, tennis courts, swimming pools, skateboard parks, pet parks, wildlife corridors, etc. separating each “row” of houses? Certainly the value of individual homes in such communities would be greatly increased with these “green spaces”. A simple answer though is, for developers there is no money in green spaces and reduced density on a particular parcel of land. LR
Fire Order No. 1 – Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.
Watch Out No. 4 – Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior.
The following research papers should help you to better understand the significance of this fire weather phenomenon common in the Boulder, CO area.
Check out this research paper: J. B. Klemp and Doug K Lilly (1975) The Dynamics of Wave-Induced Downslope Winds
February 1975 Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 32(2):320-339
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229061014_The_Dynamics_of_Wave-Induced_Downslope_Winds)
DOI: 10.1175/1520-0469(1975)0322.0.CO;2
Their research is also cited in this paper (https://www.weather.gov/media/wrh/online_publications/TAs/ta9031.pdf)
Boulder County Sheriff faces fire recovery during final year in office – “We will get through this. It’ll be okay,” Sheriff Joe Pelle said.
KUSA 9NEWS, Steve Staeger, January 2, 2022
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/boulder-county-sheriff-marshall-fire-recovery/73-dc113db4-f2f4-4088-8e7c-fe670c495b90
…The day started in the foothills above Boulder with the Middle Fork Fire [*]. Pelle said there was a lot of concern about that blaze early, but the fire moved into a valley and laid down out of the winds. It was then he got a call that another fire was burning down the hill.
“I’ve been through this before and I know when it’s that windy and that dry that nobody’s going to drive off in a fire truck and put it out…it’s off to the races,” Pelle said. “When the fire’s so fast…the radio traffic was so desperate,” he recalled. “Our guys were literally racing 100 miles an hour trying to get ahead of it to get people out of harm’s way.
Several deputies were injured trying to get people to evacuate, Pelle said. Several deputies got embers and ash in their eyes and one deputy had burns all over his neck and the back of his head. Pelle said those burns were not caused by direct contact, but rather by the searing heat of the blaze that rocketed over the suburbs at speeds faster than traffic.
Firefighters couldn’t make any progress on the growing fire until the winds died down. It was then, Pelle said, he learned the fire hit close to home. Pelle said he learned the fire destroyed Louisville Police Chief Dave Hayes’ home.
Then he learned it also took the home of Boulder County Sheriff’s Division Chief Curtis Johnson. “Curtis Johnson called and was in tears and his house was gone… everything he owned, his cars, everything melted in the driveway and the basements a smoking hole,” Pelle said….
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*The small Middle Fork Fire north of Boulder, CO was reported on December 30, 2021 about 10:00 a.m. It was laid down with no major structures lost, and wasn’t related to the Marshall Fire on December 31, 2021:
Middle Fork Fire under control, crews working on mop-up
Boulder Daily Camera, Mitchell Byars, December 31, 2021 at 11:06 a.m. | Updated: December 31, 2021 at 8:34 p.m.
https://www.dailycamera.com/2021/12/31/middle-fork-fire-under-control-crews-working-on-mop-up/amp/
Just in:
https://www.denverpost.com/2022/01/02/marshall-fire-origin-twelve-tribes/?utm_email=C5A3553595B3044894F5F4F5FF&g2i_eui=&g2i_source=newsletter&lctg=C5A3553595B3044894F5F4F5FF&active=no&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.denverpost.com%2f2022%2f01%2f02%2fmarshall-fire-origin-twelve-tribes%2f&utm_campaign=denver-breaking-news&utm_content=alert
Of course, all those affected should receive assistance. But wealthy folks are more likely to receive help.
“…across the country, white Americans and those with more wealth often receive more federal dollars after a disaster than do minorities and those with less wealth. Federal aid isn’t necessarily allocated to those who need it most; it’s allocated according to cost-benefit calculations meant to minimize taxpayer risk.
Put another way, after a disaster, rich people get richer and poor people get poorer. And federal disaster spending appears to exacerbate that wealth inequality.”
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/05/688786177/how-federal-disaster-money-favors-the-rich
Sad any comments whether a home is high end or not. These families lost their homes, all their possessions, all irreplaceable, no matter the social hierarchy. Are these current inflated costs because of the outrageous real estate market?Only 2 individuals unaccounted for today, thank heavens. My sister is an outdoor school teacher, a Forest School, in Boulder. Two of her students, sisters, lost their home, they, their parents and 5 rescue kitties got out safely, with nothing else. It shows some ones character, that diminishes the suffering of a family’s home, wealthy if not. They too will get FEMA assistance, should they not?
For the residents of these communities this is truly tragic. These are “higher-end homes” for the masses that can “afford” an absurd mortgage that assures a “home owner” remains in debt thus feeding the ravenous financial industry! In the late ’60s my environmentally-minded professors at CSU warned of the impending I-25/Front Range megalopolis. It was hard to imagine but by the mid-’80s I, too, was professing the truth of the inevitable. LR
Using the PDF asset list noted above, here’s an example of home values in one of the neighborhoods destroyed by the fire. Click the “Neighborhood Details” link to see an annotated map:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/945-Larkspur-Ln-Louisville-CO-80027/13244160_zpid/
You start to see why the Marshall Fire will be Colorado’s most expensive disaster ever.
Using the PDF asset list noted above, enter a home’s street address, city, and state in Zillow’s search box at https://www.zillow.com/ .
When Zillow’s listing for the home appears, click its “Neighborhood Details” link. You’ll see a Google map of the neighborhood with labels of Zillow’s last price estimates for the surrounding homes. Here’s an example:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/945-Larkspur-Ln-Louisville-CO-80027/13244160_zpid/
You start to see why the Marshall Fire will be Colorado’s most expensive disaster ever.
“Unlike most states, in Colorado county sheriffs have statutory responsibility to coordinate wildland fire response within their county.”
This is a massive, massive problem in Colorado and it needs to be remedied. Firefighters should be in charge of fire response. You wouldn’t make firefighters be the lead agency with law enforcement issues? It’s an archaic model that is not suited for the wildfires of today.
Maghreb – your solution is easier said than done. First, the Sheriff has no jurisdiction over Fed lands (USFS, BLM, FWS. BIA). They just cover lands in their County that may only have a Volunteer Department, with no paid employees and no one guaranteed to respond. If taxpayers are willing to pay for full timers, then it would be easier to remedy this situation. But as a member of a Rural Department Board of Trustees, I can assure you that voters are a fickle bunch. Interesting problem with no easy answers.
My brother who lives in Lafayette, just sent, if anyone is interested in specific addresses affected:
https://assets.bouldercounty.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/marshall-fire-preliminary-damage-assessment.pdf
Thank you Minnie. I added a link in the article.