Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  When the Cold Spring Fire erupted on July 9, 2016, it moved fast, hot and erratic, and Wildlands Fire Specialist for Station 8 in Boulder Mike Smith knew fighting the fire had to be immediate, even though the blaze seemed to be disorganized at the time. But the 911 calls came pouring in.

Smith, a Nederland resident, parked his engine at the intersection of Peak to Peak Hwy. and Cold Springs Drive to assess the situation. Smith is qualified to command national incidents up to a top 3 severity and Nederland Fire Protection District Chief Rick Dirr put Smith in charge of the command.

With no vehicle access to the fire, wild land crews toted blade bags to the point of origin, but soon had to retreat. Within nine minutes of the first report, the fire charged and Smith called for every resource available. He improvised a common center, using dry-erase markers on the side of his truck. His strategy was to keep ground crews out of harm’s way but still in motion, protecting structures. He sketched out disaster scenarios, drawing polygons, planning for every scenario.

The air attack was ordered quickly and helicopters started dropping buckets of water pulled from Barker Reservoir on the fire. Then the Single Engine Air Tankers arrived bombing the area with fire retardant.

Smith’s strategy and the ensuing details of how crews fought the Cold Springs Fire are explained in the recently released Wild Fire written by author Heather Hansen who was a member of Smith’s crew and gives first hand information of the time line and attack process that took place in the initial phase of the fire. During this time Hansen was spending a year with the City of Boulder Wildland Fire Division, Station 8. Her writing brings to life the mental and emotional processes that command officers go through during a fire battle.

Hansen speaks for Mike Smith explaining the triage mode of assigned structure protection and accessibility. These are actions that residents are becoming more and more aware of as they learn that mitigation on their property might give the firefighters the opportunity to save their homes.

During her research and after the fire interviews, Hansen probed the thoughts and emotions of those firefighters who were in the thick of of it.

Hansen arrived in Nederland as thousands of residents were being evacuated from their homes and firefighters and support staff were streaming to the town, ready to set up evacuation centers.

Hansen writes concisely, delivering a close-up description of the control maintained during chaos, of resident panic paired with care and quick acting assistance for those threatened by the fire.

She writes that the Cold Springs Fire was the first large local event that the Station 8 crew had been involved with, that firefighters learned that yes, it can happen here, and it won’t be the last time. “Cold Springs was a warning shot over the bow. It ended the way it did because of quick-thinking leadership hard-working crews, and luck.”

Her work on the Cold Springs Fire is prefaced by a history of other epic wild land fires in Colorado, the history of fighting these fires and how local, state and federal agencies are working to be pro-active in mitigating the effect of wild fires and training and preparing and gathering information that will enable them to better protect their communities.

She warned the guests who showed up at the Nederland Community Center two weeks ago to realize that wild fire season is now all long year long.
Hansen’s book, Wild Fire, is available at the Nederland Community Library and various businesses in Nederland.

It is available online at mountaineerbooks.org

(Originally published in the August 23, 2018, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)