A wildfire swept through Boulder County Colorado on Dec. 30, resulting in $513 million in damage and an OU alumnus losing his home.
Daniel Hesselius, an OU aviation graduate and current director of flight operations at the University of Colorado, lived in Louisville, Colorado, in a neighborhood called the Enclave where “roughly 90 percent of the houses burned to the ground,” including Hesselius’.
Hesselius said the day of Dec. 30 started like any other. He was off work for the holidays and at home with his wife and high-school-aged son while his other son, another OU graduate, was at the airport about four miles away.
“It got really windy late in the morning (with) 90 to 100 mile an hour winds,” Hesselius said. “That's always concerning. My wife was chasing trash cans down the street because the wind was blowing them away. There were more than hurricane-force winds. And overall, other than that, (we were) just looking forward to New Year's Eve.”
Later in the morning, Hesselius was on his way to pick up his son from the airport. As he drove out of the subdivision, he began to hear sirens and saw smoke. Hesselius said he immediately went back to his home to gather more information on what was happening.
“I called my son up at the airport, who said ‘you better get back right away,’” Hesselius said. “He drove about three miles back real quick. He had to drive through pretty much what I would call most of the smoke at that time, which is interesting because, at our house, it was a clear blue sky. Fantastic visibility. A perfect day. But, if you look to the south from our house … it was almost like it was nighttime.”
By this time, Hesselius said he and his family knew they had to evacuate. They grabbed what they could in a matter of minutes.
“All it took was that wind direction shifting maybe 15 degrees and that fire that was pretty close turned our way,” Hesselius said.
The power went out and the fire marshal knocked on the door to tell the family to evacuate immediately. Hesselius said he and his family left in a traffic jam, as many families fled the fire. What was normally “a five-minute drive” took nearly two and a half hours for Hesselius, as he drove his family to the airport to meet up with their older son.
“Ashes were falling out of the sky, burning embers were falling out of the sky, and at that point, the wind direction had shifted to where we were, directly downwind of the fire,” Hesselius said.
That night, Hesselius said he and his family stayed in a hotel as they tried to ascertain whether or not they had a house. The alarm system in Hesselius’ house notified the family of the fire for about an hour until the system stopped responding.
It was not until two days afterward that Hesselius said he and his family were able to go see the remains of their house.
“The house was still actually on fire. Parts of the house were aflame,” Hesselius said. “The house was ash and a hole. There was nothing left standing of the house whatsoever. Some of the remains still had small, one-foot tall flames burning on it two days later after it snowed.”
Hesselius said the house had been in the family for 28 years and he had lived in it for roughly five. Out of about 40 houses in the neighborhood, only about five survived, Hesselius said.
“There was absolutely nothing salvageable from the house because the heat was so (intense),” Hesselius said. “We have a big metal rolling tool chest that started to melt. There were two cars in the garage that were completely melted and destroyed and almost nothing on the house was recognizable. Everything just turned to ash.”
Current OU student and Spanish foreign language education sophomore Taylor Niehoff said, although her house was not directly affected by the fire, she and her family live in Broomfield County, just outside of Boulder County, on the other side of the highway where the fires burned.
Niehoff said she and her family were out of town Dec. 30 and only heard about the fire from the news and family friends.
“I just remember feeling pretty helpless at the time,” Niehoff said. “Like, there's really nothing we could do. Even if we were there and we got evacuated, (there was) not much we could do, so I'm really thankful for our family and friends that helped us out to go get our cats taken care of (and) get them out of the house.”
Niehoff’s neighborhood did not have to evacuate during the fire, but, in the uncertainty of the moment, Niehoff said she remembers feeling extremely anxious.
Looking back almost a month later, Niehoff said she was most surprised at how the surrounding community sprung to action.
“It was incredible to see the community come together,” Niehoff said. “Just friends helping out friends, neighbors helping neighbors. I mean, the fire was still going on. It wasn't even put out yet before people were sending out messages on Facebook like ‘Hey, what can we donate? Who's putting together drives?’ and things like that.”
Hesselius said he was extremely thankful and impressed with the community response. The hotel he and his family stayed in allowed all pets to remain with the evacuated families, and an emergency coordination center was created nearby so the Hesselius family could pick up supplies for their dog and receive water, food and other necessities.
“It was a fantastic effort to get that together so quickly for everybody, to pool all those resources into one place where everybody could go in kind of one-stop to fix everything,” Hesselius said. “So that was very good and really well done by the community.”
Hesselius and his family plan to rebuild a new house in the same spot. He said he is concerned about current labor, lumber and supply shortages that will increase the amount of time it will take all families in affected areas to rebuild.
“It'll be months, or maybe years before any of the sites are cleared,” Hesselius said. “Then, you have to rebuild and that takes a long time. That's my biggest concern for the community. ... How long is it going to take to rebuild some sense of normalcy? I'm afraid it might be five years or more.”
Jim Monaco, Hesselius’ fellow member in the Rocky Mountain Soaring Association, started a gofundme on behalf of the family.
