MEEKER — When a 60,000-acre wildfire is breathing down the neck of a small northwestern Colorado town, the locals don’t freeze. They follow their first instinct — to jump into action to protect themselves and their neighbors.
Thatap how brothers David and Brian Smith found themselves standing at a crossroads about three miles west of Meeker just before lunchtime on Friday with two semitrailer-sized cattle haulers, along with a smaller livestock trailer and a couple of farmhands.
The Smith brothers, both ranchers, were waiting on a firefighter to escort them past a roadblock into the mandatory evacuation zone along Colorado 13. They showed up to help another rancher rescue hundreds of cattle stuck inside the perimeter of the Lee fire in Rio Blanco County.
Twin wildfires have scorched more than 110 square miles around Meeker since they were started by lightning on Aug. 2, with the Lee fire burning right up to the White River — just a mile away from the town’s southwestern border — while the smaller Elk fire burns 11 miles to the east. Thousands of people were under evacuation and pre-evacuation orders because of the fires until Friday afternoon, when sheriff’s officials downgraded most of the warnings.
As they waited on the road Friday, the Western Slope ranchers expected a tough chore ahead. Itap still too soon for cattle to come off their summer grazing land and the cows will know it, David Smith said. Even with heavy smoke in the air, the cattle will be determined to stay where the grass is green and where water is available.
“Itap too early and they don’t go where they don’t know to go,” he said.
The brothers expected to use anything they could — horses, four-wheelers and “any available man” — to round up the cattle and drive them to safety, David Smith said as ashen smoke billowed on the other side of a hill and wind whipped his shirttails.
Meeker residents have watched the Elk and Lee fires explode in size over the past week, fueled by high winds, humidity hovering in the single digits and hot weather. The Lee fire is now the largest wildfire burning in Colorado, and both fires caused Gov. Jared Polis to issue a disaster declaration and activate the Colorado National Guard. Two National Guard helicopters and crews arrived in Meeker on Friday to boost firefighting resources that are stretched thin by wildfires burning across the country.
The Meeker Public Library reopened its doors Friday afternoon and put out poster boards and markers so people could create “thank you” posters for the firefighters in the town of 2,400.
Hearing that the evacuation status had been downgraded was enough for Michele Morgan, the proprietor of the Elk Mountain Inn, to unpack her car.
“I was tired of driving around with art in my car,” she said.
Still, the fire rattled some residents of the small town less than 80 miles from the Utah border.
“Everybody kind of knows everybody,” said Regas Halandras, a Meeker businessman and Morgan’s husband. “When one thing goes down, there are a lot of people who feel it and a lot of people who are part of it.”
The Elk Mountain Inn has no vacancy because of the firefighters in town to battle the blaze. When two bikers who were traveling home from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota stopped to rent a room on Thursday night, Morgan and Halandras offered the men the guest rooms at their house.
“In Meeker, itap pretty standard,” Morgan said. “You help people out.”
However, some Meeker residents’ sense of duty to help almost cost the town its water supply, said Jak Kilduff, the town water operator and public works director.
Multiple residents who evacuated left water running at their houses, thinking it would help prevent their neighborhood from burning down if the fire jumped the town’s borders.
Kilduff went door-to-door with a police officer to turn off water lines and issue notices.
“We found one sprinkler set in the middle of the road just going tchk, tchk, tchk,” he said, imitating the sound of water spraying. “It would have been a big issue if we would have run out of water.”
He and the officer managed to shut off all the random hoses, sprinklers and even kitchen sinks. Then the town’s water storage tanks were refilled on Friday afternoon from the aquifer that supplies the town, he said.
At the same time, Kilduff was evacuating his farm where he raises sheep for show. He had turned on his irrigation system and left the sheep standing in ankle-deep water on Thursday.
“I didn’t think they would get in trouble,” he said.
Meeker is not out of the woods, fire officials said Friday, but a slight break in the forecast — shifting winds, a little more humidity — set to start this weekend could help turn the tide in firefighters’ favor.
Kilduff was able to return to his farm on Thursday night and his animals were fine, he said.
“Unless something flares up, we should be all right.”
