Destructive Colorado fire leaves chaos in its wake

Firefighters intensified their battle Tuesday against a 7,000-acre blaze that destroyed at least 92 structures and damaged another eight, driving residents out of densely populated canyons in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains just outside this outdoors-crazed town.

The fire began Monday morning in pine-studded Fourmile Canyon, causing so much chaos that more than 24 hours later officials hadn’t counted all the damaged buildings. The homes of at least nine firefighters were among those destroyed. There were no reported injuries.

On Tuesday the winds that had fanned the blaze had died down, but an inversion layer of high-pressure air settled over the fire, keeping smoke close to the ground and preventing air tankers from bombarding it with retardant until later in the day. “It’s the tankers that really help us out,” said Rick Brough, a commander with the Boulder County sheriff’s office. “They can knock this fire down.”

Even with calmer winds, the fire doubled in size overnight and officials cautioned that residents still could not return to see whether their homes were saved. “This is a very volatile situation,” Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. told reporters after touring the fire scene.

Dozens of residents of the canyon neighborhoods waited in the parking lot outside the Boulder courthouse, watching the official news conferences, trading information and trying to tamp down their mounting worries. “Sitting here and not knowing, while hearing that houses are going down left and right, is very anxiety-producing,” said Debora Bryant, 58, a psychotherapist.

Officials say there is no official cause for the fire, but residents said that emergency calls shortly before the blaze erupted reported that a truck had crashed into a propane tank in the canyon. Firefighters were able to protect the old ghost town of Gold Hill, but 3,500 residents in the region were evacuated Monday afternoon, and there were no indications of when they might return home.

Barry Aaron, 60, who lives with Bryant, said ash cascaded down as the couple fled their home in the Pine Brook Hills neighborhood. “It was like it was snowing in September,” he said.

Justin Dickenson, 36, was mountain biking in another part of the foothills when the evacuation order went out. He pedaled back to his car and later met his wife, son and cat at a relative’s house in the suburb of Louisville.

On Tuesday, he vacillated between optimism and pessimism about the fate of his home and reflected on his 10 years of living in the canyon.

“It’s part of the deal,” Dickenson said of the wildfire threat. “But you never think this day will really come.”

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com