This past week there was a fire here in Boulder County. The Marshall fire, which turned out to be the most destructive (in terms of property damage) of any fire in the history of the State of Colorado. Nearly 1,000 homes and business were lost. Today’s blog is the story of how animals were cared for during the fire.
Thursday and Friday were my days off this past week. The fire started Thursday morning. By afternoon, it was moving at a hundred miles per hour. That was the astonishing part. The fire moved so fast, the evacuations happened so quickly, no one had time to think.
Colorado is an interesting place. I regularly see dogs in the hardware store, and even in the grocery store. I’ve never lived any place where dogs are so widely accepted inside places of business. When the evacuations started, the news specified which emergency shelters took pets and where people could take their large animals. The livestock came up to Longmont - to the fairgrounds a mile or so from our house.
By dinnertime on Thursday, our supervisor at the doggie day care contacted us and told us to be ready to come in to help out with evacuated dogs. Some people brought their dogs directly to our facility (as overnight boarders) without knowing when they’d be able to come back to get them. The Boulder County fairgrounds quickly filled up with goats, sheep, cows, and horses. Officials had to open the Jefferson County fairgrounds. I don’t know what happened with the Covid testing that was previously taking place at our fairgrounds.
The fire department was making no progress against the fire Thursday night because the wind gusts were well over a hundred miles per hour. Eye witnesses told of the fire moving the length of a football field in seconds. Everyone was praying for snow, which was predicted for Friday.
Friday morning the snow started, and our supervisor at work sent out a call to action: our sister doggie daycare in Boulder had to be evacuated. They were not in danger from the fire, but their electricity had gone out overnight, and they had no heat. It was below zero on Friday morning. The utility company didn’t believe they could restore the electricity before Monday.
So, I went in to work on my day off. The Boulder daycare had 39 dogs that had to be moved to our facility. I set up cabins, others ferried dogs from Boulder. This was a much bigger project than just filling up a bunch of cars with dogs. Each dog who boards with us comes with luggage. They have their beds, their blankets, their favorite toys. They have bins with their special food, and we keep records of how much they eat at each meal. We make sure the dogs have all the things they’re used to having at home. That means each dog has a big bin and a bag of stuff.
Even if the dogs didn’t have baggage, you can’t just toss a bunch of dogs into your car for transport - they all need crates. The Humane Society was able to loan us a bunch of crates to transport the dogs.
It took hours to get all the dogs evacuated, and hours to stow their stuff. (Their toys and bedding went into their cabins with them, but their special food had to be stacked in bins in our lobby, because our kitchen was full with the boarders and evacuees we already had).
Saturday morning I worked the 6 a.m. shift. The Boulder facility was now officially closed until at least Monday. The fire was no longer spreading, but it was not out, either, and Boulder had gotten eight inches of snow, which was making the ruins of houses dangerous. The National Guard was blocking entry to neighborhoods, which meant that people still didn’t know whether or not they had homes. Officials were telling people that it may be as long as seven days before anyone would be able to get into the burned neighborhoods! It was really satisfying to know we were keeping dogs safe and happy. The Boulder dogs began making friends with the Longmont dogs.
On Sunday the fire was 62% contained, and about twenty of our dogs went home. I got to give dog baths and clip claws all day - some of the people whose dogs were evacuated decided to take this opportunity to get some dog grooming in!
On Monday, the Boulder daycare called and said that their power had been restored. We began making preparations for their dogs to return to Boulder.
When we had evacuated the dogs on Friday, we were in a hurry - the Boulder day care was too cold, and the dogs needed to get out of there fast. But on Monday, we didn’t have any time pressure. The dogs were happy where they were.
It took us most of the day to return the Boulder dogs. We started the day on Monday with over 80 dogs in our care. At the end of the day we had 17 boarders. For the first time in a couple of weeks it was eerily quiet in the doggie daycare!
At this point the perimeter of the fire was 100% contained, although there were still hot-spots within the burn area.
On Tuesday we got the news that the fire was not caused by downed power lines. Those downed lines that eye-witnesses saw turned out to be fiber-optic lines - our internet connection. They are not capable of starting a fire. Instead, it turns out that ground zero for the fire was a shed on property owned by Twelve Tribes - a national Christian sect. Due to our extreme drought, embers from small fires like that burn hotter than in wetter conditions (according to the Wall Street Journal). When those stronger embers are combined with the extreme high winds we had, the result is fires in areas that no one previously thought were vulnerable.
Then on Wednesday, my beloved little Bela had to be put to sleep. I can’t even express my anguish over this. She was 17 and a half years old. She had stopped eating on Monday. My vet told me that she was suffering and that the kindest thing would be to let her go. What can you say to that?
To honor her life, I’m posting two old photos of her, both of them taken when we lived in Evanston.
She and Zuli loved to supervise piano lessons. Zuli would sit on the floor, supervising pedaling, and Bela would jump to the top of the piano to observe fingering. My students - especially the youngest ones - loved when Bela jumped up on the piano. Especially if she climbed down and walked on the keys while they were playing.
Thank you, little Bela, for the time you spent with me. I can never convey my heart full of gratitude for your love.