East Troublesome Fire Watershed Recovery: 3 Years Later

[@Jimmyd7443]

Please ignore the first comment by someone who cannot appreciate the efforts that have been completed to date. Unless you were there, you can't understand the scope of the work. You like clean drinking water? Then appreciate all the efforts of the people and crews in this video.

[@stace7685]

I love Grand County and i appreciate all the different govt and conservation groups that came together to help us. I learned alot about what needed to be done post fire. Great video!

[@dacianbonta2840]

li'l recovery footage, lotsa paper-pushers flapping there yaps lotsa contractors tryna look busy, li'l recovery footage

[@davespargo5944]

Sad to see these ridiculous comments from you. This fire was just above my house and I, along with many others, were emergency evacuated out for a week when this fire literally exploded and took out 100,000 acres in a matter of hours. We also had loss of life from it. These past 3 summers have been non-stop work in the recovery effort. The trail system up there I ride year round on snowmobile and 4 wheeling. I have ridden thousands of miles up there and seen the results first hand of all the effort from these folks. Paper pushers??? Little do you know how much physical work was done up there. "li'l recovery footage?". Surely you jest.... If you saw this within days of this happening, let alone seeing the carnage as it happened, to where we are now in the recovery process, it would humble your a$$ in a heart beat. Over 400 homes were lost in just a couple of hours. Family's lost everything, and then some. What the first responders did in getting everyone evacuated in only an hour and a half was an amazing thing to see. I hope you never have to experience anything like this.

[@davespargo5944]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYm8o5-tfJiiadEsi=zjcaJHFSccsY9HXs

[@dacianbonta2840]

@@davespargo5944 I am very sorry for your and your neighbor's loss otoh, if bureaucrats like those in the clip would do more bureaucrating and less mugging for cameras, tragedies like yours would happen less and be less extensive.

[@davespargo5944]

@@dacianbonta2840 , I actually work with some of those folks, and have had dealings with a couple others. They are actually very good people, and helped get the coordination for these efforts rolling. It took everybody (and then some) to get us to where we are today. To put in perspective what happened on "THE DAY", I'll try to give an easy explanation/example to you. To start, I assume that you know what a downburst is from a severe thunderstorm is, where the cloud is so saturated with cold air and moisture that it collapses and just falls to earth with an amazing wind and mass water content. Total chaos, right??? Well, turn that cold wet cloud into seriously hot air and full of burning embers. Imagine if you will taking a shovel full of red hot coals and slinging it to the ground. POOFF!!! Well, The day that happened, the winds were a steady 45-50 mph+. Late fall so all the grasses were pretty much dry and the forest was full of dead pine beatle kill lodge pole pines 60 to 80 feet tall (match sticks). The cloud collapsed and it was just a flame thrower. The leading edge of the fire was recorded at 3,000*, and the winds were a sustained 200 mph with recorded gusts of 250+ mph. Dude, it was Hell as Hell has ever been. This initial fire ball was , well, literally a fire ball. Some friends just west of me just a couple miles saw it come over the ridge into their valley. This has actually had a very serious effect on mental health. To see a puff of smoke over a ridge 30 miles away, the smell of a campfire in the neighborhood, it triggers some bad memories, PTSD as it were. When we get these city folks coming up to rent an Air B&B that have no clue about the hazards that come with their "Oh boy, we're in the mtns now, lets do mtn stuff....oh boy, look how BIG those flames are in the fire pit...add another log HAHAHAHAHA..." It dosen't sit well. The pic I took in my driveway as I was being evacuated with the red glow of the fire putting the houses just above me in an backlight situation, well the thought of "this is the last view I'll ever have of my house", well, rather scary and sickining. I'm not gonna cuss you out, but I will ask that you do some scrolling on KZbin and look for the general heading of "East Troublesome Fire, Colorado". Spend an evening viewing, then think about if that was you and your family in that situation. One thing I can guarantee, I have never seen a community come together as strong as this community of Grand County, and I know we have both seen where communities have come together after some serious tragedy.