Homeowner Lucy Schubert opened her front door Sunday morning to Clear Creek County Deputy Jon Walker, who told her to evacuate her home because of a fast-moving wildfire nearby.
Luckily, the “evacuation” in the Brook Hollow neighborhood was part of an all-day wildland fire training exercise and not the real thing. The Evergreen Fire Protection District and the Clear Creek Fire Authority co-hosted the exercise for about 100 firefighters in an area just south of Interstate 70 near Floyd Hill.
Firefighters — most of them volunteers — came from departments in Clear Creek, Evergreen, Aurora, Denver, Elk Creek, Fairmount near Golden, Foothills, Genesee and Indian Hills. Some Clear Creek and Jeffco sheriff’s officers also participated.
Homeowners in the neighborhood were notified ahead of time about the exercise; Schubert and her husband, Fred, were allowed to stay in their home and watch the training.
A cluster of small red flags was planted in the ground across the street from the Schuberts’ house to represent where a finger of fire had jumped across the road. Firefighters pulled hoses out of vehicles and started dousing another nearby flagged area.
“It’s just a matter of time before we have a fire here. What they’re doing is so important,” Fred Schubert said.
The Schuberts said they pruned low branches on all the trees around their home and cleared brush about a year ago to guard against a possible wildland fire. They worry that a blaze could be ignited by a motorist throwing a cigarette out of a car window on I-70.
‘You have to work with your neighbors’
Firefighters who participated Sunday were grateful for the opportunity to get acquainted during an exercise rather than the real thing, said Mike Fassula, a lieutenant with Indian Hills Fire.
“The nature of wildland firefighting is that you have to work with your neighbors,” Fassula said. “We’re happy to get some experience working with others and getting some training for our members.”
The training area was in the Evergreen Fire Protection District and also in Clear Creek County near the Jeffco line, making communication among districts potentially more challenging, according to Clear Creek Assistant Chief Mark Abrahamson.
The area was chosen in part for its tight turnarounds and one-way-in-and-out access, according to Rick Safe, a sergeant with the Clear Creek Sheriff’s Office. He characterized the area as “one of our most critical subdivisions” because of access issues. Firefighters had to come up with strategies to get their vehicles in and out of tight and dead-end roads.
Firefighters who battled the Bluebell Fire in Evergreen last June faced a similar access problem, said Doug Saba, spokesman for Evergreen Fire/Rescue. Residents fleeing that blaze near Brook Forest Road made it difficult for firefighters to get in, he said.
Sunday’s exercise was funded through a $4,000 federal grant for wildland/urban interface fire training, Saba said. Clear Creek High School was used as the staging area, and in a separate part of the exercise, firefighters in the school’s parking lot discussed a “sandbox” representation of the training area. Kitty litter in the box had been shaped into the nearby hills and valleys. Toy jax represented houses, and toy trucks represented fire vehicles. Different colors of yarn were laid out to represent roads and streams — blue for Beaver Brook and red to represent the fictitious fire.