“These four walls are home right now,” she said, standing inside her restaurant.
In the ashes of her home, only a few items remained intact: a stack of buttons, a salt and pepper shaker, some coins, a horseshoe, a towel rack.
The blaze came at the heels of a traumatic year for a place often referred to as the “Boulder Bubble,” a nod to the healthy, utopian-like lifestyle many residents take pride in and that some say is removed from surrounding realities.
“I wish these things weren’t happening. I’m devastated that they do happen. And I think we have had enough experience in our country to know that there are things that we can do to prevent them from happening,” said Kellie Brownlee, 29, a graduate instructor at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Those things include measures to prevent further gun violence, boosting vaccination numbers to help curb further surges and tuning into climate action to better address recurring natural disasters like wildfires, Brownlee said.
“It’s heartbreaking when it comes into your community, but it also brings to light the fact that this will affect all of us at some point,” she said.
Sirens, again and again
Just a few blocks from the University of Colorado Boulder, Jeff Gamet said it was often sirens rushing by his home that tipped him off to the tragic events that took place in the community.
Days later, Gamet heard helicopters and police vehicles speed by again, this time heading to the scene of the shooting at the King Soopers store.
Gamet visited a memorial for the victims in the days after the shooting — a brief exception to a year he largely spent in his home, dodging the coronavirus so he wouldn’t pass it on to his immunocompromised parents. Looking around at the memorial after the shooting, he said he found vivid reminders of the other crisis.
“We’re all wearing masks,” Gamet said. “So we had that emotionally devastating incident and underlying it, we were still trying to deal with a pandemic.”
Days after a Christmas spent in quarantine, Gamet said he found himself preparing to evacuate, in case the Marshall Fire came close.
“There’s been so much going on,” he said. “There were days where I’d be in the middle of my routine and I would just cry.”
“That’s the first home we ever bought. We raised our kids in that home,” said Chris Heuston, who said her husband started the popcorn business with their daughter. All that’s left now of their home of 27 years, she said, “is just ashes in a concrete hole.”
Without any warning from local officials, the family watched the flames approach last week and had just minutes to grab some belongings, Heuston said. By the time she ran out of her home, which was filled with smoke and soot, she could see the fire in the field behind her home.
“I just wish I had 15 more minutes to grab a few more things that meant something,” she said. Safely sheltering at a friend’s house several miles away, she watched the flames swallow her home on live television, after a news crew set up cameras nearby.
‘We’re constantly in crisis mode’
“It’s been overwhelming,” Barber said. “We’re constantly in crisis mode.”
The district reopened its doors after the winter break on Wednesday, Barber said, after getting the buildings in working condition again — including by purifying the smoke-filled air inside and restoring electricity. District officials, Barber added, have prioritized having students in class throughout the pandemic as a means of family support.
“It’s incredibly important for families that are going through such unthinkable things to have a place for students to be able to go that’s safe, that’s stable,” Barber added. “For there to be some level of normalcy in these families’ lives.”
At least 42 employees lost their homes in the Marshall Fire, Barber said. More than 480 families in the district have reported some kind of impact from the blaze. The district is coordinating to provide necessary resources to students who need them, including laptops, school supplies and counseling support.
But prices in recent years shot up in those areas as well, residents say, and the loss of structures means an even larger affordable housing crisis is on the way because of the housing shortage.
“There are a lot of people that have no place to live now and they can’t afford to get a place here. What are they going to do?” said Gamet, the freelance writer. “Are these people just going to move away and be gone from the community?”
A day-by-day recovery
After the series of traumatic events, what many in the community may be feeling is a “sense of groundlessness,” said Sona Dimidjian, a psychology professor and director of the Renée Crown Wellness Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“Like the ground has been pulled out from under them,” Dimidjian said. “I think it’s important for people to know that’s part of experiencing a traumatic event like this.”
For the Gill family, the past year in Boulder County seems to point to a dangerous reality the nation is heading to, said Mandip Gill, Gurjeet’s brother.
“I think this last year, year and a half, has just been trending towards our new normal,” he said. “I don’t think any of us are equipped to handle what’s happening. And I think we’ve all learned that by the surge of (the) mental health crisis.”
Grappling with what happened will be a long term process for the community, Dimidjian said, and it’s important residents and those impacted know there are mental health services and counselors in the community that can offer guidance and support.
For many here, that process has only just begun.
Heuston’s family spent the days after the blaze making family dinners, watching movies and assembling puzzles, hoping to revive a small sense of normalcy. Despite all the things lost, Heuston is thankful they’re all still here.
“One of the things the pandemic taught us too is how much our health and our families and our lives mean, and it’s finding some of that beauty in our world every day,” she said. “Because if not, how do you keep going?”