That Fire in Colorado on December 30, 2021

[Weedygarden]

I debated starting a thread about this fire on the day it happened. The stories and information that comes out of a situation like this keep coming up in the news. It is 3 weeks since the fire, and the stories still go on.

I saw a story about water and how there was a problem with limited amounts of water. THAT is the story I'm looking for, but can't find it now. I'll keep looking, but there are other stories that are so interesting.

I think of the impact that COVID has had, but I have been thinking about the impact of fires for a while. How to prepare, how to survive, how to rebuild? If any of you have had a home fire, you know the devastation.

This is just one story, until I can find the one about water. What this man has lost, he can never replace in his lifetime.

https://www.9news.com/article/news/...-fire/73-df8651db-8bda-4383-afa7-9f2451e7bf54

 

[Peanut]

When in my early teens my childhood home got flatten by a big tornado. That event has shaped my life in several ways. Losing everything gave me very clear ideas of what is/isn't important in life. And the importance of protecting the things that have real meaning...

I feel for the guy in the article.

 

[Haertig]

I saw a story about water and how there was a problem with limited amounts of water. THAT is the story I'm looking for, but can't find it now.

https://www.9news.com/article/news/...-fire/73-e9c78aea-fec0-4bef-bdc0-e484bdf9df1a

 

[Weedygarden]

https://www.9news.com/article/news/...-fire/73-e9c78aea-fec0-4bef-bdc0-e484bdf9df1a

Thank you! That story!

 

[Morgan101]

Fire terrifies me. I know of no way to survive it other than evacuate quickly with as many supplies and valuables as you can possibly take. One of our prepper family from a previous forum was wiped out in the California wildfires a few years ago. The devastation was incredible. Where his house was there wasn't a brick left standing. It was complete rubble. One of the most gut-wrenching pictures I have ever seen was his little girl maybe five years old at the time, holding a charred doll. That was all she had left.

IMHO no matter how prepared you think you are, no matter how secure you think you are, nobody is safe from fire.

 

[SheepDog]

There are ways to mitigate any hazard as long as you are willing to pay the cost.
Plan for the impossible. Build to that extent. When the meteorite destroys your home you can proudly comment that it wasn't a fire.

 

[Weedygarden]

Fire terrifies me. I know of no way to survive it other than evacuate quickly with as many supplies and valuables as you can possibly take. One of our prepper family from a previous forum was wiped out in the California wildfires a few years ago. The devastation was incredible. Where his house was there wasn't a brick left standing. It was complete rubble. One of the most gut-wrenching pictures I have ever seen was his little girl maybe five years old at the time, holding a charred doll. That was all she had left.

IMHO no matter how prepared you think you are, no matter how secure you think you are, nobody is safe from fire.

This is me! A fire can take everything. I met someone who lost everything in one of those California fires as well. There are possible things we can do to minimize the damage, such as building with non flammable materials or to have good fire prevention and mitigation systems, such as sprinklers, but none of it is 100%. Two houses in Colorado have survived fires for those two reasons. One was built of non flammable materials. The other had a fire mitigation system built, to put out a foam covering for the home as the fire came close. Both of those are expensive and require diligence.
There was also a fire where the older couple had a bunker, and thought they could survive there. They did not survive, and my guess is that they were oxygen deprived.

 

[montanabill]

Some years ago we had our 20 acres in the forest of montana swept over by a racing forest fire.
Left for work in the morning and by that afternoon the area was getting evacuated. We snuck back in to rescue the cat and it was like a battle zone. fire crews and air drops and the bad part was the embers falling out of the sky from a half mile or more away.
The only thing that saved our cabin was the sprinkler on top and the fact the power stayed on for the well. I had constructed the cabin with no eves to trap wind or fire so the sprinkler wet the roof then ran down the sides. The place otherwise was reduced to white ash and my wife had just been injured at work so we walked away and went bankrupt.
One thing to remember is fires are big business and make some people a lot of money. We had strange experiences with fema and other folks and finally just shut up and got on with our life.