By Clare Tone
Photo: Joe LaFollette, temporary pens at Boulder County Fairgrounds
It’s likely residents of Boulder County were in a heightened state of wildfire awareness as drought conditions persisted through October and historic wildfires raged elsewhere throughout the west.
When the Calwood and Lefthand Canyon Fires broke out in Boulder County in mid-October, the horse community seemed on their toes and ready. Boulder County witnessed a late fire season of historic proportions, and to be sure, the equine community rose up in equal measure to provide support of epic magnitude.
On Saturday October 17th, around mid-morning at my house west of Gold Hill in western Boulder County, my landline rang. It was my sister, Mea French, alerting me to a big plume of smoke she saw rising up in the foothills in our general direction. I scooted out to the end of my driveway to have a look. I watched as the wind, blowing strong and hard from the west, whipped the plume ferociously to the north and east. I made a quick call back to Mea. I could see the fire was more of a threat to her in west Longmont than to us southwest of Jamestown. Sure enough, by that afternoon the Calwood Fire had advanced rapidly to the east and by evening had jumped across Highway 36. Evacuations were ordered throughout the area, including the heavily horse-populated regions between Boulder-Longmont west of the Diagonal Highway. The largest-ever horse evacuation in Boulder County history was underway.
Friday, October 16, 2020
Boulder County Fairgrounds Manager, Joe LaFollette and his staff, had just settled 24 horses in from Larimer County due to the still-growing Cameron Peak fire. Going home that evening, he told his staff to be ready on Monday for a possible full evacuation mode due to that poorly contained fire. Joe was looking forward to getting some fall projects done around his home, but by Saturday afternoon he and his family were themselves evacuated due to the new Calwood Fire. While his family went to stay with friends, Joe went to the fairgrounds where he encountered the arrival of a steady stream of trailers.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
Starting on Saturday, and continuing over the next many days, the horse community throughout Boulder County rallied like it has maybe never rallied before. Facebook pages popped up connecting those needing to evacuate with those who were able to help evacuate or house horses in need. It’s estimated well over 1,000 horses were evacuated during the Calwood and Lefthand Canyon Fires with many also coming into Boulder County from Larimer and Grand Counties due to the ever-growing Cameron Peak and East Troublesome Fires. The outpouring of support was especially strong from Boulder County horse member 4-H clubs and the Boulder County Fairgrounds.
Helping to coordinate the scene at the fairgrounds was Mikaela Kugel. As leader of Boulder Valley Riders 4-H club she says it just felt like the obvious thing to do. She and her mother, Lara Kugel got early word about the Calwood Fire evacuations thanks to a family member who is a Boulder County Sheriff’s Deputy. Having been through fire evacuations themselves when living in the Boulder County foothills with their horses, Mikaela and Lara agreed early on Saturday to ‘divide and conquer’. Mikaela would help at the fairgrounds while Lara assisted with trailer evacuations.
As a junior studying pre-med at Colorado State University, Mikaela’s focus has always been on helping people (as to her English Composition paper due tomorrow—well, that would just have to wait!) In my recent interview with Mikeala it became clear to me her 11 years in 4-H positioned her well to provide leadership and stay organized amidst the chaos at the fairgrounds, and the many other places she assisted with equine evacuations during the fires. At the fairgrounds, Mikaela got down to business checking in horses, stall needs and equipment, what horses could be housed together, filling water buckets, and building additional pens from stock panels. She helped organize the many people present without horse experience—from police officers to local volunteers.
Mikaela recalls the evacuations started around 2:00 PM on Saturday. After about two hours, Joe notes there was still a line of trailers out the south parking lot and down Nelson Road. Not surprising considering the horses from Colorado Horse Rescue, Triple Creek Ranch and Wildsong Ranch—along with the many smaller facilities in the region—all needed to get to safety. By 5:00 or 6:00 PM on Saturday the fairgrounds were full. It was a chaotic scene, but according to both Joe and Mikaela not a single negative incident or mishap occurred.
As Joe describes:
“I have been with Boulder County for 26 years and have done many evacuations, this one by now, was concerning. Was I going to have enough room? We began constructing pens, dividing arenas and placing horses in every area we could. By 7:00 PM we had approximately 500 horses, not to mention many other livestock. The final tally was 844 animals when the dust settled, the largest evacuation in Boulder County History.”
Sunday, October 18, 2020
Mother nature brought welcomed upslope conditions with cooler temps, higher humidity and low clouds that hugged the foothills—what a relief! At 9,000 feet, Broken Arrow Ranch sat above the upslope clouds, and by mid-day, when I was doing ranch chores, the first wisps of black smoke started coming up over the ridge above Lefthand Canyon. I knew right away it was a new fire, growing rapidly.
Slurry bombers on-hand to fight the Calwood Fire had been grounded due to the low cloud deck, and so they were immediately dispatched to the new Lefthand Canyon Fire above the clouds. Thanks to the quick action from firefighters, and fortunate weather events the Lefthand Canyon Fire never grew to more than 500 acres. Nonetheless, it prompted its own cascade of evacuations, and threatening many in its path as the Calwood Fire had done just the day before.
Because of the many Calwood Fire evacuations the previous day the horse trailers on call to help us at Broken Arrow Ranch were not available. Thankfully, Mea also happens to be the immediate past-president of Boulder County Horse Leaders Council, overseeing the five horse-member 4-H clubs in the county. She would know who to call. Living in a cell-phone dead zone, I barely had time to make that single landline call to my sister who assured me trailers were on their way. I had no option but to take her word for it. Knowing Mea and the resilience of 4-H members I felt pretty confident.
Sure enough and not a moment too soon my heart leapt as two pickup trucks, each pulling a two-horse trailer, rounded the bend into the ranch driveway. Sixteen-year-old Karolyn Matheis from Blazing Saddles 4-H club, and Makeala’s mom Lara Kugel (Boulder Valley Riders 4-H), were able to make their way through heavy smoke and past the many emergency vehicles lining the roads of the tiny town of Gold Hill eventually 3.5 miles further west to evacuate us.
Due to the two fires and persistently windy conditions, many horses had to be moved twice. Or those evacuated one day became hosts to others evacuated the next. Such was the case for my sister and nieces. They evacuated their two horses to a friend’s house on Saturday, only to come home when conditions allowed on Sunday to welcome three Broken Arrow Ranch horses evacuated from the Lefthand Canyon Fire.
My nieces, Liz and Megan French, members of Easy Riders 4-H club, kept a close eye on the Broken Arrow Ranch horses for a full week and even provided light-hearted ‘goat therapy’ sessions for me and the horses with their resident herd of goats.
Head, Heart, Hands and Health
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that horse members of local 4-H clubs played such a pivotal role during the fires and evacuations. Afterall, according to their website:
“4-H is a community of young people learning leadership, citizenship and life skills with the intent to inspire young people to learn and grow, to make their best efforts better through participating in educational experiences.”
Horse folks throughout Boulder County certainly witnessed young horse leaders making best efforts better during the fire evacuations while demonstrating the four H’s of their logo (Head, Heart, Hands and Health).
By Saturday, October 24th, the Lefthand Canyon evacuations were lifted ahead of the gift of an incoming storm predicted to bring very cold temps and significant snow. So the race was on to get horses home and water troughs filled before the storm. With the new challenge of getting horses home ASAP with horse and human nerves already frayed from recent events, not all journeys back home were as smooth as the evacuations. Thankfully, once again, the horse community was ready with assistance, trailers and even helpful mentoring to help get us home. For example, when I was at wits end trying to get my fearful paint horse loaded back up, local trainer Monique Potts stopped by at a moment’s notice and helped me get him successfully loaded. Monique mentioned she had seen quite a bit of that in the last several days. “The horses came all right but are having a harder time loading up to go home.”
This same weekend saw continued evacuations throughout Grand and Larimer Counties with hundreds of horses in danger from the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak Fires making new threats toward Estes Park. Despite exhaustion, missed hours of work and out-of-pocket expenses to keep fuel tanks full, horse folks from Boulder County continued to bring trailers back up to stage from Lyons, ready to help. Among many other trailer rescues they made over the course of the week, Asher Rudkin and Emma Brown spent a long time trying to coax two BLM burrows into a spacious stock trailer. In the end the burrows were carried on board. Mikaela and friend Teagan Weir (Easy Riders 4-H) made numerous trips with their four-horse trailer. These are just a few of the many stories.
As of this writing:
- The Calwood Fire has burned 10,106 acres, is 85% contained and stands as the largest wildfire in recorded Boulder County history with 26 homes damaged or destroyed. An update from inciweb (the Incident Information System) on November 12th reads, in part: “Please rest assured, firefighters will continue to closely monitor and patrol the fire for any sources of heat or smoke. Snow is holding well on the north aspects of the fire in the rocky area above Highway 7. Another MMA flight will take place tomorrow to once again check for sources of heat on the north side of the fire. Winds are expected tomorrow. A storm this weekend is expected to bring more snow to the fire area.”
- The Lefthand Canyon Fire was fully contained at 460 acres.
- The East Troublesome Fire remains 60% contained with little fire activity anticipated and has burned 193,812 acres. Preliminary estimates report 366 residences and 214 outbuildings and commercial structures were destroyed or damaged in the East Troublesome Fire.
- The Cameron Peak Fire, burning since August 13th is 92% contained and has burned 208,913 acres, the largest in Colorado’s recorded history.
Causes of all fires remain under investigation. Our community experienced tragic loss of homes, property and Open Space lands. Many of us continue to reactively look to the skies on a windy day expecting to see wildfire smoke, a remnant of our brains still working out the trauma. But there is much to be grateful for in the way the horse community came together which is nothing short of inspiring.
Joe LaFollette, Manager, Boulder County Fairground sums it up well:
“This community is impressive, not one time in all of the evacuations have I had to pick up the phone and ask for anything! Hay, grain, human food, etc. etc. Matter of fact I have to be careful even mentioning to someone I MIGHT need something. I will be inundated within minutes, literally. I asked for halters once in 2008, I still have 50 or 60 halters and lead ropes, some new some old. Every evacuation someone needs one or two. I could not be more proud to be a part of a community so willing to bend over backwards to help their fellow equestrians, late nights, cold, tired, worried but never hungry.”
Our hearts go out to those who suffered loss at the hands of the explosive Colorado wildfires of 2020 and our gratitude goes out to all who helped in big and small ways. If you have a story to share about your experience related to these fires and evacuation please send it my way!
