BOULDER — At 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, waves of ash blew across the pavement at “The Ridge,” the southernmost part of the North Rim subdivision north of Boulder.
The smoke was dense and soot flew through the air, driven by ferocious winds.
Visibility was 10 feet.
Fires were burning in the grass and in the shrubs of the yards of homes on three sides of the intersection of Fairways Drive and Niblick Court.
In the hills 6 miles due west, flames shot straight into the air.
Fire had blackened the grass of the open space leading up to many of the houses, and waves of reddish-brown smoke choked the air.
Joel Klenck, who works from his home on Pebble Beach Drive just a few blocks away, had not evacuated.
“The cats don’t travel well,” said Klenck, who owns three of them. “That is why I’m hesitant to leave.”
Klenck, his wife, Tess Lorraine, 17-year-old son, Julien, the three cats, and the dog, Tika, had so far weathered the huge fire.
Klenck hoped history would repeat itself. Another big fire failed to burn his home down several years earlier.
“I’ve been through this once before, and I think I have a handle on it,” he said. The Ridge, he noted, is surrounded by open space, primarily grass, and is not heavily wooded.
Klenck, who built his house in 1994, thought the open space would help save the structure.
Everywhere in the subdivision, firetrucks pulled in, their lights flashing but sirens silent. The firefighters dragged lines from their trucks to behind the homes where flames were spreading upward through the grass toward the houses.
The ash blackened firefighters’ faces.
Boulder County sheriff’s deputies, the lights on their cruisers flashing, checked residences to make sure people were evacuating.
To the east, in another section of the North Rim subdivision, Maurice Koelemay and his wife, Fon, were hurriedly packing one of their cars.
They had just hiked more than a mile to their home after officers wouldn’t let them drive in.
The Koelemays said they decided they had to get to their house to rescue their dog and two cats.
In the back of their car, Fon Koele may had thrown memorabilia collected by their two grown sons, plus various ornaments she had made for the boys over the years.
“My primary concern is where the fire is going,” Maurice Koelemay said.
On Palmer Court in the Lake Valley subdivision, 15-year-old Jake Levine was home Wednesday with a fever when he got the reverse 911 call about 3:15 p.m.
The recording told him to evacuate to the high school or a fire station, and added, “Please make no further calls to 911.”
Levine called his mother and father to come get him and his two dogs, Schmitty and Marshal.
The teenager, a sophomore at Silver Creek High School, had thought about driving one of the family cars but was afraid he might be picked up because he had only a learner’s permit.
“Wind and fire does not equal good stuff, but I am pretty good at staying calm,” he said.
About 40 minutes after the reverse 911 call, Levine’s dad, Bob Levine, pulled into the driveway.
In less than 10 seconds, Jake and the dogs jumped into the car and were driven out of harm’s way.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
