A few days later, a Thursday, I woke up to horrendous winds ripping through my neighborhood from the southwest. The winds were so bad that my dogs absolutely refused to go outside, and I didn’t blame them. So, I just put some pee pads down by the back door and decided to hunker down for the day. Penny stayed by my side, while Hunter hid under my bed the entire day (he only came out if I offered him food).
Here in Colorado, we occasionally get “murder winds”, especially during the fall through the spring. I call them “murder winds” because of just how scary and violent they can get. I mean, they’re literally hurricane force winds. 60+ miles an hour at the lowest, usually filled with all sorts of dangerous debris. But, that day, the winds must’ve been gusting up and over 100 miles an hour down my street. Logically, I knew I was safe. I’d weathered all sorts of weather in that house and others like it. But, emotionally, the sound of those winds tearing apart my trees and slamming my gates open and shut made me almost as nervous as my dogs. So, I spent most of my morning in my bedroom with noise-canceling headphones on. At least, until I started catching wind of what was going on less than an hour west of me (pun intended).
The winds were howling a 100+ miles an hour from the northwest where the Marshall fire apparently was. And, if it was as bad as the news was saying it was, if it truly was an unstoppable, growing blaze, and the winds were blowing straight southeast from it, I had less than an hour to get my shit and go if the worst happened.
My bags were already packed (I didn’t unpack them after Monday because I kept forgetting about unpacking them), and all I’d have to do is throw everything into the Xterra if the worst came to be (which I’d moved part way into the garage because I was worried about it getting pelted by all sorts of debris). But, what then? I didn’t want to drive in that wind. Hell, I didn’t even want to step foot outside for the thirty seconds it would take me to throw the dogs into the backseat. And, all of my in-town family were far east of me, in southeast Aurora, Colorado. How could I make it all the way there safely?
In the middle of my little “what if” game, I was able to slow myself down and take a breather.
“Even if the fire bee-lines it over here, it’ll still take quite some time for the fire to rush through Golden, up and over Green Mountain, across the lake, and through the neighborhoods between me and it. Right now, I’m safe and secure in this house. If the worst happens, I have a 4,000 pound, 260 horsepower vehicle with a full tank of gas parked halfway into the garage. I’ve driven through wind before. We drove the Xterra through Glenwood Canyon while flames were literally licking the highway, and we barely smelled smoke. My dogs and I will be alright.”
Still, I knew I couldn’t simply ignore the problem and hope it would go away. I spent the rest of my day upstairs, watching the news unfold as Colorado’s worst wildfire ever annihilated parts of the west metro area. I remember how scared and helpless I felt as I watched the scenes unfold live. I remember how worried I was about it making its way to my neck of the woods, especially towards the evening when the winds showed no signs of dying down. I feared for the folks who were having to endure my worst nightmare live on TV. I worried about what might happen if the winds didn’t die down soon enough. I worried about my friends who lived near the fire, as well as those who lived closer to me (but, in my mind, were still in the “danger zone”). Overall, I was an anxious mess, just waiting for the worst to happen to us all.
Thank God, the winds died down significantly a few hours after sunset. Shortly afterward, huge flakes of snow began to float down from the sky. In just two hours, it went from being apocalyptic, to a winter wonderland, putting an end to Colorado’s most destructive wildfire to date.
