Angela Kircher had no idea her 92-year-old mother could move so quickly.
Kircher and her mother, Margery Kusulas, were in a windowless bedroom of Kusulas’ Arvada home about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when neighbor Terry Kemp ran in yelling, “Angie, get out!”
“I looked out in the backyard, and the back field was on fire,” Kircher said.
Kircher said that when her mother heard Kemp, she got off the bed and started moving.
“She was ready to go. Prior to the fire, you couldn’t set a bomb under her and move her out of that house,” Kircher said, chuckling. “But the day of the fire, yeah, she would have beaten me out had I not gotten out of there first.”
Two police officers helped Kusulas from the home.
Kusulas, who had lived in the home with a panoramic view of the Front Range since 1947, spent much of Wednesday where the structure had stood until a passing train apparently threw sparks in the wind, igniting dry grass and causing a fire that spread rapidly. Also gone was her cat, Spooky, who apparently did not escape the house.
“We expect these kinds of things to happen,” Kusulas said. “We have to expect these things.”
“I know it is for a cause,” said Kusulas, who describes herself as deeply religious. “The Lord will straighten this out for me.” She hopes to rebuild on the site.
