Since that year, an even slightly dry and windy day puts me on edge, which may or may not be good, considering I live in one of the driest and windiest states in the country. I think everyone in Colorado gets paranoid on dry and windy days, especially after that Marshall fire. It showed us that wildfires weren’t just a mountain or rural phenomena, and they didn’t just happen in the summer either. If Colorado’s murder winds get a hold of a single spark, no matter the season, Lord help us all. 

Last Friday was one of those days. I knew it would be windy, but not that windy. At least, not until midmorning when, seemingly out of nowhere, it went from being calm to extremely blowy in about five minutes. Penny, once again, stuck to my side like velcro, while Toby sat by the back sliding glass door and watched as the wind toppled over our lawn furniture (which I’d weighed down with logs, but that wasn’t enough). 

Naturally, I got very nervous and watched the weather like a hawk. A couple hours later, I had to go pick up my little brother and a couple of his friends from school, which I wasn’t very thrilled about. Thankfully, for me, I wouldn’t have to drive far, and my route was relatively sheltered. But, I was damn sure nervous about the drive, especially because there was so much debris in the air. 

To add fuel to my fear, my mom called. She was on her way home from work when the worst of the winds hit, and she was getting scared (and she doesn’t think about weather like I do). 

“There are trees and signs down everywhere.” she explained, “And dust. Lots of dust and rocks. Is there a tornado warning?!”

“A tornado warning?” I echoed, “What makes you think that?”

“We’re having, like, tornado winds or something. It’s really bad.”

“Those are called high winds,” I replied, shaking my head a little, “I’m not aware of there being any high wind warnings. But it is bad out here.”

“How bad?” Mom asked, worried. 

“Prolly worse here than it is in Denver. Our trees are gettin’ the hell beat out of them, and there’s tons of dust getting kicked up from the baseball field ‘cross the street.”

“That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not. But it isn’t a tornado, at least. We don’t get tornadoes when it’s sunny…” 

“Well…” Mom paused for a second, “I have to pay attention to my driving, still. Be very careful when you pick up the kids!” 

“Will do…” I nodded, “See ya when ya get home.” 

Outside, the winds were getting stronger, roaring against the house and breaking branches left and right. Just before I headed out, I watched a small plastic chair bounce down my street like a tumbleweed, missing the Xterra by a foot or two. I cringed. I really didn’t want to go outside, even for the few seconds it would take me to get to my Xterra. Frankly, I was actually pretty scared to go out there. But, I had to, because my only job in life was to be my little brother’s chauffeur. 

So, I waited for the wind to die down for a moment, checked up and down the street to ensure the coast was clear, then sprinted to my Xterra, getting in just as a gust came through, slamming the door on my leg. 

“Ow! God fuckin’ damn it!” I cursed aloud as I pulled my leg into the truck and rubbed my calf where the door slammed on it, “That’ll leave a mark. Jesus, that hurts…”

The winds shook my Xterra violently, and I watched the huge blue spruce tree next to me to make sure it didn’t start falling before the wind died down. All while, I was seriously considering just leaving my brother at school. 

“His friend’s mom can get them…” I thought to myself. That was, until I remembered the Christmas card they’d sent me last year, with a $100 gift card for Cabela’s. I couldn’t let my fear let my brother’s friends down, too.

So, I buckled my seatbelt, turned the keys, and held onto the steering wheel with both hands. I’d given myself a long time to get to the school, so I could drive as slowly as I wanted to and find a decent place to park. Because… well… those winds were really, really bad, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I was (and am) scared of driving in such winds. 

Cautiously, I drove forward towards the end of the cul-de-sac to turn around, all while the wind rushed right at my truck. It was nice that the winds were blowing almost straight west-to-east, so I didn’t have to fight crosswinds most of the way. But, aside from that, the winds were just horrendous. Like, “Wyoming ground blizzard” bad, but actually slightly stronger, with less snow and more trees and signs blowing across the road. 

At least, I had quite the tailwind pushing me along. 

Like many drivers, I was driving slowly and very defensively. A few drivers were a lot less cautious, and were speeding down the left lane as though the murder winds weren’t blowing down Chatfield full force. As I drove around the bend, a branch about as long as my arm broke off from one of the trees by the road, landing on the ground right in front of me. Had I been going any faster,  it would’ve left a sizable dent in the hood, if not shattered the windshield. I did my best to avoid running over it (the last thing I needed was a flat tire), and managed to get to the school ten minutes before it let out. 

I thought about getting in the round-about by the school so the kids didn’t have to walk so far in the wind. But, it seemed like everyone else had that exact same idea, so I parked on the road across from the school, with the back of my Xterra facing the wind. 

“This is… this is bad…” I mumbled to myself, “I bet if I shifted into neutral, the wind would push me down the road…”

I rolled down the windows as far as they’d go, so that when the kids got to my truck, they’d have an easier time opening and closing the doors. The wind roared by as though I was still driving, only from behind. A part of me worried that, given the right gust, one of my doors could get damaged, and/or someone would get hurt like I already did. But, then, I got a bad feeling that wasn’t just my “what if” game at play. 

It’s hard to explain what these “gut instincts” are or where they come from. But, I’ve always had them. In this case, perhaps I caught a whiff of smoke that subconsciously triggered some primal anxiety, or I just knew that extreme winds+dry, warm air+shitty infrastructure and/or some dumbass with a cigarette= fire. Regardless, I whipped out my phone and looked up the weather news, when, on the front page I saw the headline, “Brush Fire along the hogback south of I-70…”

“Hmmmm…” I growled as a chill shot down my spine. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the best wifi where I was parked, so the article didn’t load any maps for me. But, I knew enough to know that the fire was threatening my neck of the woods. All it had to do was jump a couple hogbacks (which, in that wind, it could easily do), jump the highway, and we’d get Marshall 2.0. Given how viscous the winds were, and the directions in which it was blowing, I reckoned we didn’t have long if one little spark managed to jump the highway. And oh boy, did that fire have plenty of sparky fuel on those hogbacks!

First, I reached out to Mom, sending her the link to the news headline asking her to read into it further. 

“It’s all the way out by Red Rocks.” She replied via text, “It’s bad but nowhere near us.”

“Bullshit!” I shouted aloud to myself, “Red Rocks is not even ten miles from us! And sustained winds are coming from there at least 40 miles per hour!”

Instead of sending a frustrated text back to my mom explaining to her that we didn’t live far from Red Rocks (and she still owes me $20 for betting that I couldn’t get a picture of Red Rocks from the valley with my camera, because Red Rocks was “way too far”), I waited awhile longer for the article to fully load. Once it did, I sent a text to Eric with it, knowing he lived closer to the fire than I did. 

Immediately after that, school let out for the day. I watched for the kids I was responsible for. V was the first to arrive at the Xterra. She was having trouble standing up at times the winds were so strong, and I worried that she couldn’t get into the Xterra without getting hurt. But, before I could say anything, she opened the door and lost her grip on it. 

“Careful, now!” I shouted. 

“I can’t get it to close!” she shouted back. 

“Get inside first, and I’ll help ya!” I replied. 

I leaned over the center console and managed to get an arm through the open window of the passenger door, while V grabbed onto the interior handle. I pulled my arm back and got the door to close, just as another gust was coming through. 

“It’s super windy today, ain’t it?” I laughed, doing my best to hide my fear and worry. 

“Yeah…” V agreed with a shaky sigh, “It is.”

Shortly thereafter, my brother and his other friend arrived, and they had a much easier time getting in and out.

Like usual, everyone buckled in, and I slowly made my way home, doing my best to avoid all of the stuff blowing around in the storm. 

“Why is it so windy, Maya?” my brother asked as I was driving. 

“Cuz it’s spring.” I replied. 

“But why does it get so windy in the spring?”

“I don’t know…” I lied, “Listen. I gotta pay attention to driving so a tree branch doesn’t go through our windshield.”

“Wait… what?” V asked, wide eyed. 

I didn’t say anything. I just kept my eyes forward and drove ahead, this time into the wind. And holy hell, could I feel it rushing around the Xterra! 

But, once again, after another ten anxious minutes of driving, we arrived at home safe and sound, and in one piece. Since the driveway was free (Mom parked her 4Runner in the garage), I parked in the driveway where it was mostly sheltered from the wind and falling branches, and headed back inside my house. 

“That fire is closer than I thought it was…” Mom trailed off. 

“Yeah? That’s why I sent that article to you. It’s close.” I replied, slightly annoyed. 

“Should we start getting some stuff together?” Mom asked. 

“That’s what I’m gonna do right now.” I answered. 

While I headed down into my bedroom to gather some essentials, family heirlooms, pictures, and whatever else I deemed too valuable to lose, Mom did the same for herself and my brother. By then, a couple of pre-evacuation orders had been issued for Morrison and a neighborhood adjacent to it, which were one hogback away from northern Ken Caryl Valley. With the winds blowing so hard from the fire towards our way, I wasn’t gonna wait for the fire to be in my backyard to pack up and get ready to go. I didn’t want to leave and go driving in that ferocious wind again. But, if I had to, I would, and Mom and I agreed to rendezvous at my grandparents’ if things got to that point. 

I prayed incessantly that it never would. 

After I packed up two hampers full of essentials and valuables, I went around the house filming all of our possessions for insurance purposes. Just last week, Mom bought fire insurance that covers 100% of our house and everything in it (something, something, what a coincidence…). Call us paranoid. But, I’d rather be ridiculously overprepared than tragically underprepared.

After I finished filming our house, I went back online to see if there were any updates on the fire, where I read a headline that read something like, “Hogback fire is 10 acres and growing, moving southeast…”

“Shit…” I growled, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all…”

Even though I was in my basement bedroom, I could hear the wind roaring outside, blowing south-southeast at 40-60 miles an hour. If that hogback fire was going with that wind, and growing larger as it consumed the dried brush in its path, the threat of it jumping over the hogback, over the highway, and into Morrison, Lakewood, and Ken Caryl was also growing. I seriously began to wonder if this fire would be Marshall 2.0. I mean… as far as I knew, it was getting to be very bad, and shaping up to be much like the Marshall fire in a lot of ways. A lot of very scary ways.