I got ahold of a friend of mine who lives in that area. He’s about 10 miles from the evacuation zones, but could see the fire from his backyard.
Sounds like it has started precipitating , so that should help things.
A scary video of people leaving a shopping mall
That intersection has been under construction as they add pedestrian and bike underpasses. Normally I’d use it to get to work, but I’ve been avoiding it for months, so I don’t know if it still has permanent traffic lights, but it may be the temporary ones that broke.
The wind was strong enough to twist other traffic lights on their poles, knock the visors off others, and leaving Boulder during the afternoon of the fire, about half the lights were out.
I believe that is the Costco in Superior. Driving into Boulder around noon the day of the fire, the smoke plume from the grass fire was blanketing the Costco. Not long after that they ordered a mandatory evacuation of Superior.
My sister returned home this morning. She said the fire seems to be out; she can’t even smell any smoke. No damage to her place. < phew >
It’s mind boggling. The total destruction right next door, just feet away, from homes that look utterly untouched.
Oh, that’s great.
My spouse, who is with my kids at my brother-in-law’s house in Gunbarrel, reports that it’s been snowing for hours. So hopefully the fire aspect of this disaster will be over.
It will be a long road of recovery for a lot of people though.
That video is horrifying. It makes me wonder about how it is that there are no casualties reported so far. I really hope that holds up.
Huh crap, so that’s the ‘nearby grassfire’ that guy on my friend’s birthday zoom call was talking about. I didn’t realise it was that big. I hope him leaving the call shortly afterwards was a coincidence 
Boulder Office of Emergency Management says initial reports that downed power lines were the cause of the fire were wrong. Only communications lines were found down in the ignition area, and they are unlikely to have caused the fire. So, investigation into the cause is ongoing.
Denver Post reports 6000 acres burned, with around 1800 homes inside that area. (The number of home confirmed burned down is lower – seems to be about 1000, now.) 30,000 people displaced.
Here’s a 2 minute video from Avista Adventist Hospital showing the damage they incurred and talking about what steps the staff took during the event to keep patients safe:
Good job and some good luck with that oxygen storage, eh.
This is wild, completely unfounded speculation on my part.
The Marshall fire may have started near CO highway 93 and Marshall Road (170). It was originally thought to be downed power lines, but the wires turned out to be communication lines, and the cause is currently unknown.
I believe that the south east corner of 93 and 170 is the location of an underground coal seam fire.
I read about Colorado’s coal fires sometime ago in a state report, and that was the only fire in Boulder County. The state has reorganized their website, and the only links I can find to the report are now dead.
Wild speculation. I may be misremembering the location of the fire. I may be mistaken about the existence of the fire. The Marshall fire may not have started there, even if there is a coal seam fire in the place I remember. Even if the locations line up, the coal fire may be too far underground to have possibly contributed.
You aren’t the first person to suspect a coal seam fire. The thing is, there are sooooooo freaking many old coal mines in Colorado.
I found this map of Lafayette, which is just east of Louisville (pronounced loo-is-ville, btw):
That pic is old; the developed city hasn’t been that small in more than 20 years. And there are at least 13 mines on that map. So now there are houses and roads and schools and parks and hospitals and shopping malls etc. on top of those mines.
ETA: Here’s the site with that map, btw:
EATA: Weird. After I added the link to the website, neither the map nor the preview are displaying here for me.
There’s also a claim that a barn was the initial source of the fire:
https://twitter.com/asp321/status/1476706677638402058?t=3fxN2RlX2dJvL8q6HjrcPw&s=19
This house was spared; the owner and his caretaker fled and left breakfast on the table.
I don’t think there is a coal-seam fire there. We have gone hiking on the southeast corner many times (The Marshall Mesa Trailhead) and there are coal mines there but we have never seen any indication or warning of a fire.
It was that twitter post that made me realize where the fire was suspected to have started, and how close that is to where I remembered the coal seam fire being.
I found the report! It took the extra bonus to my search roll from using my laptop, instead of my phone.
Colorado Underground Coal Fire Report 2018 (pdf). The information about the Marshall mine fires starts on page 16 of the report (26 of the pdf).
Here is a Google Maps link where I’ve dropped a peg on the coordinates given for the Marshall 1 and 2 coal fires.
It turns out I did remember correctly that the coal fires are considered a “low” risk. The report also says that “on December 20, 2005, a brush fire was started by a hot vent from the Marshall Coal Mine Fire” so there is precedence.
I’m not pushing this as some sort of theory I believe, or anything like that. It was more just a late night thought off “hey, isn’t that intersection where the coal fires are?”
I’m not a geologist, and I’m not your geologist.
2 missing but for some reason they did not release names.
Thanks for that. So it is by the trail area but not on the trails themselves.
At least 991 homes destroyed.
At least 991 homes were destroyed, Pelle said: 553 in Louisville, 332 in Superior and 106 in unincorporated parts of the county. Hundreds more were damaged. Pelle cautioned that the tally is not final.
Pelle said officials were organizing cadaver teams to search for the missing in the Superior area and in unincorporated Boulder County. The task is complicated by debris from destroyed structures, covered by 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow dumped by a storm overnight, he said.
The blaze, which burned at least 9.4 square miles (24 square kilometers), was no longer considered an immediate threat — especially after an overnight dumping of snow and frigid temperatures Saturday. The bitter cold compounded the misery of Colorado residents who started off the new year trying to salvage what remains of their homes.
At least 6 inches (0.15 meters) of snow and temperatures in the single digits cast an eerie scene amid still-smoldering remains of homes. Despite the shocking change in weather, the smell of smoke still permeated empty streets blocked off by National Guard troops in Humvees.