At least 63 structures have been lost in the Fourmile fire, officials said, including the homes of nine firefighters.
Incident Commander Don Whittemore said at a 4 p.m. news conference
that teams had surveyed about 50 percent of the burned area, so the
number of burned buildings is expected to rise. Whittemore said the worst-hit areas were Pinebroke Hills and Sunshine
Canyon. The fire has burned more than 7,120 acres and is most active on
its north and northeast edge.
Whittemore said no portion of the fire is considered contained.
Nine of the homes that were lost belonged to firefighters and even though they could come off the line, they refused to.
"While they were out saving someone else's home, theirs is burning down," Whittemore said.
More than 200 firefighters are on the lines, assisted by eight air tankers and two to three helicopters.
Gov. Bill Ritter said this afternoon that subdivisions around a wildfire west of Boulder remain too dangerous for evacuated homeowners to visit, and that firefighters are doing all they can to get the blaze under control.
"This is a very volatile situation," Ritter said.
Boulder Sheriff Joe Pelle said the fire was sparked when an automobile ran into a propane tank around 10 a.m. yesterday. Since then it has grow, although winds have abated considerably from yesterday, when gusts up to 45 mph fanned the flames.
Command over firefighting will be turned over to federal authorities today at 6 p.m., Pelle said, though he and other local officials will remain on the fire.
"We have literally exhausted our local resources," Pelle said.
Whittemore said some local firefighters will be able to take the first break in 36 hours when the federal forces take over.
The state of Colorado has pledged $5 million to help with firefighting costs, and federal emergency managers have also promised a federal firefighting grant.
At a 12:15 p.m. briefing, Boulder Sheriff's Commander Rick Brough said an inversion held smoke close to the ground all morning, making it impossible for planes to know where to drop retardant or water.
By the time Ritter and Pelle made their public statements, the weather conditions had improved and the fleet of seven tankers and three helicopters had begun to attack the fire with retardant and water.
Fire commanders and investigators were working the area from the ground, trying to determine the cause of the fire, and conducting an inventory of damage.
As of this morning, 3,500 people had been evacuated from the area of the fire. Winds today were forecast to range from 3 to 6 mph, giving firefighters a chance to contain the blaze.
The goal for today was to focus on protecting structures, and pinning the fire in an area south of Lefthand Canyon Road, north of Boulder Canyon Drive, west of Poorman Hill and east of Mt. Alto, Brough said.
Gretchen Diefenderfer, former Gold Hill fire chief, said she heard emergency radio traffic Monday indicating it began after a truck hit a propane tank. Officials said the first call came from the 7100 block of Fourmile Canyon Drive at about 10 a.m. Monday.
Firefighters hope to move into the burned area later today to inventory the number of damaged and destroyed homes. An update will be posted later on the Boulder Office of Emergency Management website at http://www.boulderoem.com, click on "Current Emergency Information."
As Brough spoke at the command center earlier this morning, evacuee Vadim Koperwas watched nervously.
"I appreciate their not giving us false answers, but I'm stressed and anxious," Koperwas said.
Other evacuees watched the briefing with a single thought: Is my house still standing?
"How do we find out if our homes are still there?" David Myers asked Brough.
But until firefighters can get into the burned areas, there aren't many answers.
Myers, who has lived in Sunshine Canyon for more than a decade, had been on his way to town the day before when he saw smoke and sped home. He and his wife, Madoka, grabbed some photographs and clothes and their two dogs, Danny Boy and Maple, and headed to Boulder, where they have anxiously awaited word since of the fate of their home.
"I'm kinda certain it's not standing," he said. "We might get lucky, but probably not."
And he wasn't alone.
Karen Simmons, who also has a home in town, was similarly unsure whether the house she has owned in Sunshine Canyon for 40 years was still standing.
"I have no idea," she said. "It sounds like it went around me, but who knows."
Diefenderfer, the former Gold Hill fire chief who has lived in the foothills outside Boulder for 44 years, had been through uncertainty of a different time.
After she and her husband, George, fled with their cat, Elwood, her mother's silver, artwork and a few tools, she was first told that her home had burned. But she was able to drive along a mountain road that offered a view of a ridge above her home, and after seeing that she wasn't so sure.
"So I'm in this in-between stage," she said, "trying to be prepared for it if it's not there and wanting to go home and water my plants if it is."
On the west side of the fire, several structures north of Sugarloaf Road appeared lost, but the efforts of volunteer firefighters and at least one holdout homeowner saved other structures.
"I got lucky," said Bob Arnold, 64, who evacuated his wife and dogs and then returned to defend his home here through the night.
The fire reached within 50 yards of the log home where he has lived since 1988, surviving the 1989 Black Tiger fire. "I stayed here because of my experience last time... I figured it was worth a try... I figured I would stay up and defend the place."
He worked for more than six hours Monday night, shoveling dirt onto burning, dry grass. He shut the windows of his home and slept fitfully after the wind let up around 8 p.m. Early Tuesday, he hiked up to the fire again.
"You can see it is still smoking, he said. "If the wind gets going I think the little fires here could get going again."
Sugarloaf residents Troy Zach, 24 and his friend Kerry Troy, 54, had patrolled the area early Tuesday and said at least eight homes, mostly in the Mountain Meadows area, were destroyed. Zach said he helped a woman evacuate.
"She's like, 'what do I grab? Coats?' I was like, 'no, you grab documents, passports, all that,'" Zach said.
Cindy Hunter evacuated her home with her three dogs and camped in Golden Gate State Park while her husband stayed to help firefighters.
"Now I want to help people who lost their homes, I want to know what's going on in our neighborhood," Hunter, 44, said as a Boulder County Sheriff's deputy blocked her from returning to her home.
Dan Wages, 65, climbed up Sugarloaf Mountain this morning, worried that the fire might be shifting to the west toward his home.
His wife Linda is the chief medical officer for the Sugarloaf Fire Protection District. "I'm worried about it coming back up," he said.
No slurry bombers are dropping fire retardant on it, possibly because the smoke is so think that nobody can see where the flames are. Wind, while far weaker than Monday, appeared to be shifting back and forth, raising the prospect that the fire will burn west up through the town of Sunset toward the Peak to Peak Highway.
"I don't know what's holding (the slurry bombers) up," Wages said. "The smoke is so thick on the deck I'm not sure they can see their target," he looked down from the mountain at the smoke blanketing the valleys.
Steve Eandi, 62, stayed at his home until 10 p.m. Monday as sparks flew toward him and flames reached within one hundred yards. He had done the same during the Black Tiger fire, spraying down his porch with foam.
This time, he had recently cleared four beetle killed trees from his property and stacked them by his barn, built in 1860.
When Eandi left Monday night he carried his grandmother's ashes, three boxes of photos of his children, a cat, Nemo, in a cage, and a Corgi, Maggie, who rode shotgun as he drove his red Subaru wagon.
Late Monday he left to sleep in a hotel and on Tuesday morning faced deputies trying to keep him from trying to return to his home.
"I need to get back to my home. I've got an old dog in the barn. Need to see how everything's going. I've lived up here for 45 years," Eandi said.
Wildfire, Eandi said, "comes with the turf. The windiest day, that's when the fire would start."
A number of structures have been destroyed, including the homes of four firefighters.
More than 35 fire departments and agencies, including the U.S. Forest
Service and the Colorado State Forest Service, responded to the blaze.
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
