Firefighters struggled to douse a deadly blaze in a home near Lakewood earlier this week when they found the house’s doors and windows blockaded with hoarded items — a risky situation not unfamiliar to fire departments in the Denver area.
Hoarding creates a three-pronged problem: itap easier for a fire to spark and spread, it makes it more difficult for people inside the home to escape and it complicates the job for firefighters, Aurora Fire Rescue spokesperson Eric Hurst said.
“Itap complicated and dangerous for everyone involved,” Hurst said.
crews responded to the house fire near Lakewood, in the 1100 block of South Owens Court in Jefferson County, on Sunday morning.
Flames first caught in the kitchen, where the oven was being used to heat the house, according to the agency. Hoarded items blocked the home’s hallways and windows from door to ceiling, preventing firefighters from saving a man inside.
“We had to dig our way in to be able to search and get hose lines in there,” West Metro Fire Rescue Incident Commander Steve Kornegay said on Sunday. “Had that not been the case, this would have been a much, much quicker operation.”
When crews finally cleared a path, they found the 77-year-old homeowner dead. He will be identified by the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office.
Hoarding can stem from a variety of conditions and factors, often related to an emotional meaning behind the objects, said , who works in the University of Colorado Anschutz’s Department of Psychiatry.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dementia, chronic stress and other mental health conditions can all lead to hoarding, Hemendinger said. Roughly 50% of people who hoard have experienced trauma, she said.
The reason people hoard objects heavily depends on which factors are at play, Hemendinger said. Dementia-related hoarding is often an attempt to maintain control amid memory loss and confusion, while ADHD-related hoarding is linked to impulsivity and disorganization, she said.
“Hoarding in general is a tricky topic, and itap very misunderstood,” Hemendinger said. “There are a lot of complexities to it.”
For people with a , Hemendinger said it can feel life-threatening to throw items away. But not throwing those items away creates a real risk.
“Gathering those things, keeping all those things, it feels good in a way,” she said. “Itap hard to stop something that feels good, and … it doesn’t always seem like a problem to them.”
Visibility inside a home on fire can drop to near zero within minutes as smoke fills the building, Hurst said. Itap already challenging to escape in those conditions, and blocked or crowded hallways and exits can exacerbate the issue, he added.
Obstructed doors and windows also stop firefighters from easily entering the home to rescue people inside or put out the flames, Hurst said. Crowded rooms and corridors make it difficult for crews to bring in and maneuver machinery, such as a charged hose line, he said.
“Itap really challenging when there’s not enough space for firefighters to work with,” Hurst said.
Denver firefighters ran up against those barriers in late 2024 while battling a blaze that sparked in the kitchen of a home in the city’s Berkeley neighborhood. Two people were injured in that fire, which officials said was difficult for the dozens of firefighters on scene to extinguish .
Hoarding also intensified a “stubborn house fire” in southwest Denver in March, creating “extreme heat and fire,” . Another blaze in April 2025 was difficult to access because of hoarding conditions, but no one was injured, . The department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Most house fires, like the fatal Sunday morning blaze in Jefferson County, start in the kitchen, Hurst said. Many people keep combustible items too close to the stove or appliances, he said. Hoarding conditions increase the fire risk, but the warning applies to everyone in the community.
Items should be kept at least three feet away from the stove or other sources of heat, including appliances, Hurst said.
Aurora firefighters occasionally encounter hoarding conditions when responding to active fires, but they see it much more often when responding to other calls, such as medical emergencies, Hurst said. Firefighters see blocked entry and exit points, counters piled high and no clear routes to leave the home in an emergency.
“Trying to think about these things that are uncomfortable to think about before the worst happens is really what we recommend,” Hurst said.
