Greenwood – Thrilva Garrison reveled in the simple comforts of home Tuesday, her first day back on tranquil Greenwood Road since 3 a.m. Thursday when flames swooped within a quarter-mile of her home.
After four days in a Cañon City motel, she said things that only a week ago felt routine, now seemed like luxuries.
“Sleeping in my own bed. Taking a shower. Taking food out for dinner,” Garrison said Tuesday, after returning to her house in the mountains about 20 miles west of Pueblo. “I’m having a good T-bone steak tonight and a baked potato.”
Garrison was among 100 Greenwood residents who returned to their homes Monday and Tuesday. An estimated 4,900 people, many from Beulah, are still displaced. Fire officials were undecided Tuesday about when those residents would be allowed to return.
Along Greenwood Road, a dirt drive bracketed by the aspen and pine trees of the San Isabel National Forest, residents returned to find ribbons tied to mailboxes – signals to firefighters that residents had been notified to evacuate.
Wood piles, gasoline cans and propane grills had been moved to open spaces.
“I think everyone has really done a wonderful job,” said Barbara Goetz, 45, who lives down the road from Garrison. “They (firefighters) have been phenomenal. We really appreciate it.”
Goetz and her two children stayed at a friend’s ranch in Westcliffe. They left tall ladders propped against their home so firefighters could easily reach the roof and moved freshly cut lumber into the creek. Goetz and her children dragged the wood out of the creek Tuesday, a day when life had nearly returned to normal – except for the noise of helicopters working from a helipad less than a mile away.
“It felt like a war zone around here, all the helicopters and planes. It’ll be nice when it is quiet again,” Goetz said.
Martha Sanders, 54, hung her laundry out on a clothesline Tuesday, thankful for the opportunity.
“Oh, man, it is such a relief,” Sanders said of being home. “Sure, now, we’ve got to put some things back, but that’s OK.”
Like many of her neighbors in the Greenwood area, she left after receiving a reverse 911 call on Thursday .
“When we came out here at 3 p.m. after we got the call, it looked like a meteorite had landed between these two mountains,” Sanders said, gesturing to the nearby hills where three charred splotches signaled just how close the fire had come. “It lit everything up bright red. It was fantastic.”
Del Paulson, a stained glass artist, returned home to unload stained glass, mattresses and pillows that he loaded.
With Hardscrabble Creek singing in his backyard, Paulson described the feeling of being home.
“In a word, relaxing,” he said. “The tension is gone.”
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or at eemery@denverpost.com.
