When I first saw the four-mile fire, I was driving home for New Mexico. I was celebrating my great aunts 70th birthday in Taos, New Mexico. We were driving into Denver, when I saw a HUGE amount of smoke around the Boulder area. I was with my 2nd cousin and his wife and his kids that are my age and my brother’s age.
I was really surprised, that the first fire was so big, it only starting at 10:00am in the morning that day. By nightfall it had burned 3500 acres. Luckily there were no reports of injuries, but the fire crews would not even discuss containment or control on Monday night. 9news reported that the fire was moving north toward highway 36 and also growing to the west. Also 9new said that 1,000 houses had been evacuated by Monday night. I was worried about some of my friends and teachers that live near four-mile canyon and sunshine canyon.
By Tuesday morning, there were seven tankers planes used to fight the fire. Crews were able to use three on Monday evening. They had to wait until after 5 p.m. to take off, because of high winds in the area. Both directions of Highway 119 were closed from Boulder to Nederland due to the wildfire. Four mile Canyon Road and Sunshine Canyon were also closed. Many roads in the area were shut down. The reason the fire spread so quickly was because the wind was so strong. I read that the wind was 15-35 mph with gust up to 45 mph. I’m still dumfounded that a fire can spread so fast.
Today in school I learn that my teacher Mr. Lamb and Mr. Brown had an evacuation warning, as well for a few of my friends. By the third day, there was around 500 fireman fighting the fire and 7 tanker planes dropping fire-retardant. The fire was only 40 percent controlled and was still growing. By Thursday it was 80% contained and over 800 fire fighters where fighting the fire along with 12 aircraft. By Friday it was almost completely controlled. It had burned 6,388 acres, at least 170 structures had been destroyed and.
