West Highland resident Jeff Hoff spotted flames coming from the back of the Osceola Street home as he drove by and threw his car into park.
He pounded on the front door. No answer. So he kicked it in and rushed upstairs through thick, black smoke to check the bedrooms.
By the time he came back down, the wind-whipped blaze had engulfed the Victorian’s back kitchen, spread to all three stories and made a torch of the towering pine tree in the backyard.
“It was bigger than what I thought. There were huge, orange flames in the kitchen,” a still-shaky Hoff said Sunday after crews extinguished the raging house fire.
Hoff likened the scene to something from a movie.
“It was like smoke was seeping up from the carpet,” he said. “It was getting hard to breathe.”
Neighbors — some of whom said they smelled something burning earlier Sunday morning — snapped into action at the first appearance of flames over the high backyard fence just before 1 p.m.
The residents at 3272 Osceola St. weren’t home, and firefighters rescued five cats from the home, witnesses said.
Whitney Bryen, a Colorado Daily reporter who lives across the street, was scrubbing baseboards when she looked out her front window.
“I could see the flames shooting out of the backyard,” she said. “The whole tree was completely lit up.”
She rushed to the house next to the blaze to rescue a dog left home alone. Another neighbor helped an elderly woman on the other side of the burning home exit safely, with oxygen in tow.
Her husband, James Bryen, a former volunteer firefighter, dashed into the rapidly burning Victorian after Hoff to help rescue computers and other valuables.
Flames raced through two main floors and a finished attic, and burned the garage, a deck and the pine tree, said Denver Fire Department spokesman Lt. Phil Champagne.
He called the blaze unusual and said it was odd that on such a windy day, some of the home’s back windows had been left open.
“We are concerned about how quickly it spread,” he said. “We’re not saying it’s suspicious. We have not ruled anything out.”
The winds and the density of homes in West Highland meant crews on the seven trucks that responded had to work fast to prevent flames from leaping to nearby homes, he said.
June Hicks lives across the alley. Falling embers melted holes in the trampoline in her backyard, where one of her bushes also burned.
Small fires bloomed in yards as far as four homes away.
Hicks was getting into her shower when her children began yelling.
” ‘Mom! There’s a fire outside!’ I looked out my bathroom window, and it was all black,” she said. “My kids said, ‘It’s a tornado! It’s a tornado!’ “
The thick smoke and towering flames drew neighbors from blocks away. But as fire crews rolled up their hoses an hour or so later, few remained, except for Hoff, his car blocked by the remaining firetrucks.
He expects he’ll be a little sore today, but it’s nothing compared to the woes awaiting the women who lived in the home, he said.
“I just feel bad,” he said, motioning to what’s left of the house. “They’re going to come home to this.”
