Wind whipped fires raging through Boulder County
dailycamera.com
dailycamera.com
But really, any #MarshallFire twitter post right now.
If what I heard was correct and they're having 110 mph wind gusts, any fire is likely to spread, even in a neighborhood. I agree the open space makes it spread even faster, but with that kind of wind, fire reaches a new level of destruction.
We just moved from the Bay Area last year. This isn’t an area in the wilderness, it’s suburbia. This would be like if 600 homes on the edge of Fremont or San Jose burned.
Freak situation where we haven’t had rain in 3 months, winds were super high, temps were high for Dec, and it sounds like power lines went down. Unreal.
My area has just been removed from the pre-evacuation zone, since the winds have finally subsided.
For anyone that doesn't live here, this was caused by Chinook winds that were stronger than usual combined with extremely dry air and vegetation. My specific location had 115 mph gusts today. When you live here you get used to the Chinooks but today was extreme. Entire house was shaking.
To add color to the comment above, it is indeed an extremely suburban area. The fire started on Marshall Mesa, which is a popular mountain biking trail. Notably if you go east from Marshall Mesa you suddenly hit a shopping center with a Costco and a Target. The fire went east and directly into the shopping center along with all of the homes clustered in the neighborhoods around it. Terrible, and with very little warning.
I hope your house is okay. I'm very glad your family is safe.
Mt. Tamalpais had major burns every decade or so from the 1860s through about 1930. It's had none since.
This is the second time in as many years I’ve been surprised to see fires close enough to be viewed from the front yard - in exact opposite directions.
I’m at the N Boulder rec center with my partner (a reporter) covering this for the NYT. Thankfully it seems quiet and the wind is dying down.
Pray for snow!
The radioactive stuff was all removed or well buried. I’m more worried about the large subdivision built on the site burning down.
Also the fuckers had the audacity to name the subdivision 'Candelas'. For those following along at home, Rocky Flats was a plutonium warhead manufacturing facility raided by the feds back in the day for doing crazy stuff like lighting plutonium on fire, and not coming anywhere near close to what would be expected for storing contaminated materials. It then became one of the first super fund sites.
When you purchase a home there you are legally required to be provided and then sign a document that outlines the history of the Rocky Flats plutonium facility. I was provided this document and had to sign it as do every other homeowner here.
What I've learned is that people who don't really know anyone that lives there or have never bothered to talk to anyone who purchased homes make assumptions about the entire area. They assume that the people that purchase homes were ignorant rubes who weren't aware of the sites history. I knew about the site and researched it for well over a year before I chose to buy a home in the neighborhood.
I spoke with a nuclear physicist who lives in the neighborhood. I also have a co-worker who is also a physicist and was once in charge of a nuclear reactor at his university.
There were over a quarter million soil samples taken from the area surrounding the core containment area. There was decades of testing by the EPA. It was a super fund site for decades.
Additionally the neighborhood is not built on the site. It is built outside of a perimeter, well over a mile and a half from the core area that was covered over with concrete where the soil still contains traces of plutonium.
As you pointed out plutonium is indeed in alpha emitter rather than gamma. It's also extremely heavy and oxidizes on contact with oxygen. It's not the kind of substance that's going to blow around. It will kill you if you inhale it or ingest it of course.
I have many photos of herds of elk in the refuge that surrounds the core site. It's not at all the wasteland that people make it out to be.
Additionally your first statement claiming that a single company sues people who want to do testing is completely incorrect and can't be backed up by any references. I live here and I happen to know that no single company developed the subdivision. It was purposefully set up by the government of Arvada as a zone and split amongst multiple developers. Additionally more testing has been done in the land around the refuge which the developers have no control over or legal standing. As to testing within the subdivision, the homeowners can test whatever they want in their yards with no permission from the developers. Like a lot of anti-nuclear misinformation it doesn't even make sense when you dig into it.
Additionally the fire never got to a point where it was going to hit Rocky flats. Rocky flats and the surrounding area were placed under a pre-evacuation order in the event that the wind shifted. I live here that's why I know this.
Let me guess, a document that also indemnifies the developers?
> As you pointed out plutonium is indeed in alpha emitter rather than gamma. It's also extremely heavy and oxidizes on contact with oxygen.
So no refutation of the core point. And we know it was oxidized; they lit it on fire. That doesn't stop it from being extremely dangerous.
> I have many photos of herds of elk in the refuge that surrounds the core site. It's not at all the wasteland that people make it out to be.
There's been a resurgence of wild life around Chernobyl too. That's not metric for nuclear waste contamination.
> Additionally your first statement claiming that a single company sues people who want to do testing is completely incorrect and can't be backed up by any references. I live here and I happen to know that no single company developed the subdivision.
Candelas LLC contracted out several home builders, but that doesn't change anything. At this point they seem to have taken their money and run though; it was dissolved in 2019.
> It was purposefully set up by the government of Arvada as a zone and split amongst multiple developers. Additionally more testing has been done in the land around the refuge which the developers have no control over or legal standing.
Testing in the refuge literally stopped the development of the Jefferson Parkway because there was a sample that was almost 20x the limit.
> As to testing within the subdivision, the homeowners can test whatever they want in their yards with no permission from the developers.
Do you know anyone who has tested?
> Like a lot of anti-nuclear misinformation it doesn't even make sense when you dig into it.
It's not coming from "anti-nuclear" sentiment, it's coming from "lot's of evidence that an extremely dangerous superfund site wasn't cleaned up". Here's Jefferson County's Executive Director of Public Health publicly calling out some of the issues. https://www.denverpost.com/2018/06/15/after-decades-of-secre...
Again, I have huge animosity towards antinuclear activist because they have completely sealed our grave when it comes to climate change. We could all be like France now if not for them.
It should be noted that the super fund site was cleared by scientists from the EPA, scientists from the state of Colorado, and scientist from Jefferson County separate from their public health division. Decades of testing have been done. Colorado State University has also done extensive independent testing.
The mainstream scientific organizations have concluded that it is a safe area. The same people who attack vaccine hesitant people for not following scientific authorities and instead embracing fringe scientists have embraced fringe scientists and opposed scientific organizations on this exact topic. It is truly hypocrisy.
https://patch.com/colorado/arvada/state-reviews-results-late...
This article details a Colorado State University and Colorado state government review of the soil samples that the Broomfield City council used as an excuse to embrace the whims of anti-nuclear activists. (You can say this isn't rooted in anti-nuclear activism all you want. I live here and I know exactly who the protesters are and what their thoughts are on nuclear power. I have yet to meet a single person protesting Rocky flats who also happens to believe nuclear power is okay. There aren't any.)
"In a 28-page report, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment determined that "remaining Rocky Flats plutonium in the Jefferson Parkway transportation corridor and offsite poses a small risk, well within regulatory limits for radiation."
The report included an independent review by Colorado State University researchers."
"The health risk associated with remaining radionuclides is very small," the report reads. "The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Colorado Central Cancer Registry studies have not detected an overall pattern of cancers tied to Rocky Flats. However, interest in Rocky Flats remains strong."
The soil sample study, which was conducted by the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, began in May 2019. In August, the highway authority notified state public health officials of inconsistent testing results in one sample, which showed elevated plutonium levels. A second test from the same sample showed a much lower level, the authority said."
Note that that the above sentence is something showing that you fell into media misinformation based on an initial take without follow up.
When you live in Colorado at a high altitude, there are two sources of radiation that are all around us. The sun, where we get far higher UV exposure than others at lower elevations, and the naturally occurring uranium/radon in the rocky soil. I own a Geiger counter from a trip I took to Chernobyl many years ago. (My last company had an office in Kiev and I had to go there quite a bit). I really appreciate the lecture on the wildlife surrounding Chernobyl. I bet you haven't been there but I have.
There's a constant background radiation in Colorado. But guess what: Like the rest of the state the incidence of cancer is far lower than in the rest of the country. My family in Southeastern Virginia lives in an area with vastly higher rates of cancer than where I do.
I do respect your opinions, and I didn't want to start hysterics. But the mind goes wondering how all this happened, and where it could lead: a simple grass fire turned into one of the most destructive fires in Colorado's history within hours. That's not something that anyone was prepared to have happened. The mesas here were supposed to act as fire breaks, not fire starters.
I hope you and your loved ones - as well as your neighbors are safe. I'm glad to hear the news of your neighborhood being spared.
My partner is exhausted from covering the story for the NYT, as well as just this year. Overhearing her on the phone (paraphrasing, and terribly): "as a local reporter, I just want to grieve with everyone else, but here I am, needing to scrape open again freshly minted wounds".
Additionally the large subdivision was not built on the site but surrounding the perimeter to the site. The core site is off limits to anyone as a precaution to prevent anyone from tampering with the remediations or deliberately vandalizing them.
Surrounding the core site is a wildlife refuge that is fairly large. On the outside of this refuge is the subdivision.
Ironically my neighborhood is right off of 72 and 93 and is completely white on the map.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_contamination_fr...
Note that this Wikipedia article isn't up to date and has some biased editing. For example Rocky flats refuge has been open to the public for a couple of years now. The article has the typical antinuclear activist tactic of FUD.
As a person who has to deal with climate change related incidents like the fire yesterday, I have huge animosity towards anti-nuclear activists.
The same people who have been protesting everything nuclear for decades are the ones complaining about climate change now without seeming to understand that all of the Western world would be like France now if not for them. The fire we are ringing our hands about potentially causing contamination probably would not have happened if not for these activists destroying the reputation of nuclear power over several decades.
It should be noted that the contaminated areas of Rocky flats are extremely secure and buried under massively overbuilt layers of concrete containments. The EPA milked the site for super fund money for probably a decade longer than it needed to for the cleanup. If you're wondering how I know this it's because I have several neighbors who used to work at the plant and then worked on the EPA-led cleanup when it was a super fund site.
The data should be driving these decisions instead of the paranoia of anti-nuke idiots.
Though much radioactive material was removed (including 21 tons of weapons-grade material), concerns over residual radioactive contamination being made airborne through fire or other disturbance remain.
If anyone from this area wants to talk, I'm game. Email's in my profile.
https://www.commfound.org/grants/get-grant/Boulder-County-Wi...
If your house is close to 93 and 72 you probably have a ton of debris in your yard.
The Chinook winds were the worst I've seen. When I heard there were fires I knew it was going to be bad. But I couldn't imagine that it was going to burn down entire shopping centers.
80mph+ wind gusts are crazy, and it's impossible to contain the fire until the wind dies down.
FIRMS Fire Map allows you to interactively browse the full archive of global active fire detections from MODIS and VIIRS. Near real-time fire data are available within approximately 3 hours of satellite overpass and imagery within 4-5 hours.
DO NOT USE FOR EMERGENCY PLANNING OR RESPONSE. Data are not realtime, and local authorities should be given precedence.
A slightly more useful view below:
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#m:advanced;d:24hrs...
If you’re reading this, I’d encourage you to look around and think about what you’d take and where you’d go if you had to leave right now.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-to-burn/
I think you might be getting downvoted for "fireproof" which sounds absolute, and is probably not realistic. But you're right that regulations should evolve to require responsible home design and maintenance in fire-prone areas!
If you want to understand wildfires, read everything he's written. He's basically the single handed Mythbusters of wildfire understanding, and has done things like "instrumented crown fires of test stands" to better understand radiant heat flux from actual fires.
Any sort of structure, wood or not, will withstand a huge radiant flux of energy before catching fire. Well, well beyond what will crispy fry a human, the siding may be charred, but it won't burn. Even wood siding tolerates a lot.
What lights houses on fire are firebrands - "burning crap from the sky." Trees, mostly, embers, other houses... that's what catches things. Typically it will light some small stuff near the house first, or in the corners of the roof (pine needles are a common enough fuel source). At that point, you've got a far harder problem - direct flame impingement. If you get to that point, you are usually screwed.
You can build fireproof roofs - I fully support pretty much anything in any areas requiring a Class A fireproof roof, which doesn't really mean much more than "being careful what you build, and not using wood shake." An asphalt shingle roof can often be Class A fireproof, and that tolerates a 2' x 2' bit of burning brand on the roof without burnthrough. The roof may not be in great shape, but an awful lot of "stuff on fire" can land on it, and if it's a properly constructed Class A roof, it won't penetrate to the building.
The landscaping around the building is a harder problem. Within 30' or so, it generally has to "not burn." This can be from design, or from sprinklers, or... whatever. If the landscaping within 30' of a house is on fire, the house is likely to follow. If you keep that from lighting, the house stands a pretty good chance.
... yes, this means that in suburbia, if the house next door is on fire, you're screwed. Don't live in such tightly packed spaces.
The next major problem are windows. If they fail, the house usually goes. They tolerate a lot, but in high wind storms, random debris can break the window, and then firebrands get in. Whoops. I would like to see some good studies on shutters, because they seem like the sort of thing that will make a very real difference on window breakage in storms, but they're not a thing anymore and probably won't come back.
But look at the debris patterns when you find the news articles of the burned out neighborhoods. Almost always, you'll see intact lawns and vegetation around a burned out foundation. It's not a "wall of flame" marching through the neighborhood - it's the firebrands, blown by the wind, that you have to defend against.
Unfortunately, when it comes to wildfires, when you've got things like 80 gusting 100, you're also just screwed. :/
Having grown up in hurricane land, this statement stood out to me. Why did shutters go away? Why won't they come back?
That's one of those damned good questions.
I have thoughts, but I'd really like to see some solid information on how prevalent they were, what their previous rationale was, and what accounts for their decline.
On contemporary houses, if shutters exist at all, they're all but entirely decorative. Frequently they're on the inside of a house.
In hurricane-prone regions, shutters seem as if they'd make more sense than repeatedly boarding-up and unboarding windows.
Note that in the case of wildfire, embers entering into attic and crawlspace areas is a larger threat than direct radiant-heat compromise of windows, though ignition of interior furnishings (especially curtains or blinds) by radiant heat does occur. Still, window and other structure penetration shutters seem as if they'd be a potentially useful addition.
The material you're more likely to use for a home if it's not wood is concrete or brick with some steel added. Concrete and brick are very fire resistant, which would make it much harder for a building to catch, and so harder for fire to spread if the building doesn't catch. The reason our homes in the US aren't brick (anymore) is it's a very expensive/specialized job, but wood framing is easy in comparison and wood is cheap here (and we have a lot of lumber mills to churn out small standardized pieces)
The inside would of course burn eventually if engulfed in a slow-moving fire with plenty of fuel, because things ignite when they get hot enough (or turn to charcoal if there's not enough oxygen). But if you're lucky the fire will move past quickly or run out of fuel, so every little advantage helps.
See this IBHS wildfire structure ember test video:
This isn't in the foothills, where fires are expected. This is where no one expected a fire like this.
This is, incidentally, a key issue in risk management: risk profiles and threat models are not a constant. The model is a reflection of reality, and if reality changes, the model should change with it.
Although this is tragic, tech to help manage fires is coming along and states can raise their standards to encourage private companies to manage risk.
This has happened in Victoria, Australia: https://spectrum.ieee.org/how-an-australian-state-faced-deva...
About three years ago I had to do a bunch of research on fire resistant construction for a project. I came across something that is fantastic. Part of me doesn't understand why this isn't a requirement in fire-prone areas, if not every home and building.
This is the product we used, of course, there are other manufacturers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVWVP3tKlZc
No affiliation at all other than being a customer. Yes, we conducted our own tests before making the decision.
It won't resist flames forever, but it absolutely delays the maximal burn event. In addition to this, it provides a potentially significant delay of the spread from structure to structure, particularly if the gap between structures is reasonable (say, 10 ft or more).
In speaking to LA County permit authorities I learned that one of the problems using advanced technology is that the bureaucracy of the system gets in the way. It's truly sad. The way the engineers put it to me translates to: If we don't have a checkbox, you can't use it. Seriously.
The only way to use it is for YOU to foot the bill and pay to conduct all the tests required to add the product to the approved materials list. This process, again, due to the bureaucracy, could take years. And, BTW, much as is the case with a lot of things in the US, obtaining approval in one county does not automatically allow someone to use it outside that county. Sometimes I think the US is a bunch of independent little kingdoms, much more so than a country.
In our case we could not obtain approval because the material was not on the list. We provided tons of proof, even getting the CEO's of various intumescent coating companies involved. The approvals are very weird, for example, a product might be approved for outdoor use and not approved for indoor applications. No, not because it won't work or is toxic. More often than not it is because the tests were not conducted for that particular application and you are out of luck. You might be approved to paint your walls with this stuff but are not allowed to coat your framing, rafters, etc. with it. Crazy.
We ended-up working around these barriers because this was a DoD project. They simply pulled rank and that was that.
https://bouldercounty.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/inde...
It's the end of December and apparently there's no snow (!!?) at 5000ft in Colorado? Insane.
The joke in Denver is sometimes that the city's snow plowing plan for the sidestreets appears to be "wait for it to melt" ....which works most of the time. Even in January the average day is over 45F, which combined with the sunny climate often makes short work of snow.
Ok they could all be related I guess.