Families, animals, return home after ’24 Fire’ Evacuation Orders lowered
FREMONT COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) - An emergency shelter organized by the Red Cross and CSU-Extension quickly went up after the Fremont County Sheriff's Office announced last week that residents within 2 miles of the '24 fire' needed to evacuate their homes.
Hours after those evacuation orders were downgraded to pre-evacuation on Monday, the shelter is practically empty. Fewer than 20 animals remain. Members of the CSU-Extension, Pueblo C.A.R.T, and the local 4-H club are holding down the fort and taking down the temporary animal enclosures, vacated after their owners picked them up to take back home.
"We had almost 120 animals," Kelsey Story with CSU-Extension Fremont County told KRDO13. "Chickens, ducks, goats, cows, pigs, horses. So we had a little bit of everything here."
Several people who came to the shelter at Pathfinders Park in Florence told KRDO13 they were very thankful to have someone to take their animals away from the smoke and fire. Everyone, evacuees and pre-evacuees, said off-camera that they couldn't wait to get home and sleep in their own beds.
"Now the work is really going to begin."
Amanda Suddoth has seen the damage a fire can do without burning down a single home.
"If they've had a lot of smoke come into the home, that creates problems, Suddoth said things like medicine, toothbrushes, and food that's not canned essentially have to be thrown out if damaged by smoke.
"We're praying that our neighbors have insurance so that they can get that help with that smoke mitigation for their stuff. Because if you've got health problems and you go back into that in stagnant air that's already been enclosed for this long, you run into bigger problems," Suddoth said.
More than a decade ago, Suddoth herself ran into those same problems she described today. Her home and all her family's belongings were heavily damaged by smoke in the Black Forest Fire. Even though her home was spared, all the items inside were taken off to be deep-cleaned. An expensive process that took months.
Suddoth now runs the My Neighbor's Cupboard in Penrose. Her Penrose home avoided the evacuation zone, but she had other friends and family who weren't so lucky.
A friend who Suddoth and Cupboard volunteers helped leave the pre-evacuation zone recalled seeing ash falling on the home and heavy smoke in the air.
However, Suddoth said a wildfire like this can damage more than material goods. "There's a lot of mental trauma that goes with this, because they've lived in this hypervigilant state of 'what if?'"
"Go check on your community. If you weren't affected by the fire, go check on those who were," said Tie Aragon, who volunteers with Suddoth at My Neighbor's Cupboard.
"We've been in the news with you guys for plenty of other things out in Penrose. And this time, you know, thank God we don't have a tragedy. We have a big mop-up, but we don't have a tragedy. We didn't lose lives, we didn't lose neighbors, and we thank God for that," said Suddoth.
