Via the ARRL: ARES Activates as Wind-Driven Year-End Fire Destroys 1,000 Colorado Homes

Nine Boulder County (Colorado) Amateur Radio Emergency Services (BCARES) volunteers turned out on December 30, 2021 as the devastating Marshall Fire roared through Superior and (portions of) Louisville, Colorado. Intense winds whipped a grass fire south of Boulder near Marshall into a massive firestorm that became too large and fierce for firefighters to battle.

“The only battle was evacuation, as the towns of Louisville and Superior and [the] northern suburbs of Denver lay in the fire’s wind-driven path,” said Amateur TV (ATV) enthusiast and dealer Jim Andrews, KH6HTV, of Boulder. Andrews said the only thing limiting the fire’s spread was the fact that the winds diminished by that evening.

“By that time, hundreds of homes had burned down,” Andrews said, whose own house among them. “This was not a typical forest fire, but an urban firestorm.” Thousands of people were evacuated.

Read more – via American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources http://www.arrl.org/news/view/ares-activates-as-wind-driven-year-end-fire-destroys-1-000-colorado-homes