Residents debate mountain living amid wildfire concerns
RED FEATHER LAKES, Colo. (AP) — Amanda Harmon spent years dreaming of living in Colorado’s mountains.
And she worked for it, too. Seven days a week, Harmon waited tables at a golf course and cleaned vacation rentals here, a remote community of 400 people west of Fort Collins that locals quietly speak of as a hidden gem without the glitz of Aspen or the popularity of Estes Park.
When she finally saved enough to buy a house in the Poudre Canyon, Harmon thought she’d never move back to the bustling Front Range.
“I feel like I played all my cards right,” she said. “And then one day, everything I’ve been working for is not there.”
On Aug. 13, Harmon and her family came back from a blue-bird day rafting on the Colorado River to find the Cameron Peak fire rapidly approaching their dream home. She grabbed family photos, her children’s old baby books and an assortment of clothes. A month later, she’s still sleeping on a couch in Fort Collins, wondering if she’ll ever be able to call that place home again.
“It’s amazing how quickly something out of my control can devastate my life,” Harmon said.
As of Thursday, the Cameron Peak fire had burned 164 square miles (425 square kilometers) in the sparsely populated Roosevelt National Forest since erupting last month, standing at 27% containment after a Labor Day heat wave caused the wildfire to triple in size. Despite its status as the fifth-largest wildfire in Colorado history, Cameron Peak has not forced tens of thousands of evacuations or wiped out entire cities, though it has destroyed 54 structures. But its flames have torched dreams and split up families. It has caused business owners to worry about paying the bills.
Yet despite the blackened forest and a persistent anxiety about being forced to...