Woodland Park homeowners beneath Rampart Fire hope the worst is over

WOODLAND PARK, Colo. (KRDO) -- With standby evacuation alerts lifted for the east side of "The City Above the Clouds" and containment now at 50%, residents who live under the current 20-acre Rampart Fire are feeling better than they did when the blaze erupted Tuesday.

The pre-evacuation alert was sent to homeowners on and along Sun Valley Drive, a subdivision with dozens of upscale homes.

Some residents said that they found they weren't as prepared to evacuate as they thought they were, or should have been.

"I feel like I have to get more ready for that," said Cheyenne Segal. "We have never been under pre-evacuation before, in the ten years we've been here. It's always like, we should, we should, we should, and what would we do? But now, I'm going to be more prepared."

The fire at least served as an effective wake-up call for many neighbors who now say that they'll have important documents and other necessities easy and ready to grab quickly the next time a wildfire threatens.

Other neighbors said that the fire brought back memories of the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire, which very nearly reached the town and would have caused catastrophic damage because of large trees surrounding so many homes.

Homeowners have mixed feelings about whether they have performed enough wildfire mitigation in their yards.

"I'm sure that we could all do more, as far as mitigation," said Diane Luck. "But of course, we love our trees. Part of the reason that we're here is that the forest surrounds us -- and you have to take that into consideration. Would it be livable if we took every tree down and totally mitigated? Not in my opinion."

According to John Thompson: "We had to do certain things for our insurance company in order to get homeowners' insurance. So, we mitigated our property. It makes you feel safer."

Billy Crockarell agrees.

We've got a lot of our trees cut up," he said. "We've just got some spots around the back of the house that we're going to start working on Monday. We have a crew coming in to take care of that. I think everybody should do it."

Woodland Park has now joined several communities facing wildfire threats early in a wildfire season fueled by persistent drought conditions.

One Woodland Park homeowner glanced longingly at snowcaps on surrounding mountains.

"That's what we really need down here -- not removing our trees -- to reduce the wildfire risk," he said.