What happened in Colorado was something much scarier than a wildfire

As someone who lives east of Boulder, the only reason more places didn't catch on fire is because the wind gusts stopped being so intense. Parts of my county were under evacuation orders and it was an incredibly tense like 8 hours until those orders were rescinded. My SO and I started packing, grabbing important papers and sentimental or irreplaceables. I was an anxious wreck and cried several times. I thought it would only be a matter of time before we had to boogey out. Thankfully, we didn't have to. By midnight, counties outside of Boulder no longer had evacuation or pre-evacuation orders.

But the incredible amount of damage that happened is sobering. There were so many images and videos of shopping malls and neighborhoods aflamed. Whole neighborhoods were wiped out. It's terrifying and absolutely because of climate change. Colorado used to get snow anytime between September and June. Now it's more like January to June. We hardly saw any moisture on the front range and that was the ticket to disaster. I didn't know I'd have to start worrying about two fire seasons.

It's going to take so long to rebuild for all the families who lost their homes and my heart goes out to them. My heart goes out to all those who couldn't rescue their pets, who were out of state or even away for the holiday. It's just been so devastating. I know a lot of people deride Facebook and yes it's shit, but there was a lot of people offering help and ready to house humans and pets and trying to make sense of the situation.

I hope this was a climate wake up call for at least some people. You're not safe just because you're not in the mountains or in tornado alley or near the ocean. I just wish there be more action towards it, but in the mean time I'll still be doing what I can.

I’m in Boulder, CO, right now, visiting friends for New Years. We flew in late Wednesday night and woke up to startingly high wind speeds. I’m an average sized person, and I have never been buffeted around before like I was on the thirty foot walk from the Whole Foods parking lot to the front door.

We have another friend that lives in Louisville that had to come here after his flight from Canada landed, because he lives in the evacuation zone. Luckily, he was far enough East that his home wasn’t damaged, but it was truly a tense situation. It was very difficult to follow what was happening in real time, because everything was happening so quickly. The timespan between “there’s a large wildfire outside Superior” and “Superior is all but gone “ was genuinely a matter of a few hours. The fact that nearly everyone was successfully evacuated in time is almost unbelievable.

Now we’re flying back to our home in the Northeast, and our friends are left thinking about how easily this fire could have started just outside of Boulder, instead of Superior. It’s harrowing.