LOUISVILLE, Colo. (AP) — Search teams looked for two missing people in the smoldering debris from a massive Colorado wildfire while people who escaped the flames sorted through the charred remnants of their homes to find what was left.
Investigators were still trying to determine what caused flames to tear through at least 9.4 square miles, leaving nearly 1,000 houses and other buildings torched in suburbs between Denver and Boulder.
The inferno broke out last Thursday, unusually late in the year following an extremely dry fall and amid with hardly any snow. Experts say those conditions, along with high winds, helped the fire spread.
Rex and Barba Hickman sifted through the ashes of their Louisville home with their son and his wife.
Their son Austin cut a safe open with a grinding tool to reveal gold and silver coins, melted credit cards, keys and the charred remains of the couple’s passports.
They had evacuated with their dog, their iPads and the clothes on their back and Rex Hickman said he was heartbroken to discover that there was nothing left of their home of 23 years.
“There’s a numbness that hits you first. You know, kind of like you go into crisis mode. You think about what you can do, what you can’t do,” he said. “The real pain is going to sink in over time.”
The couple have to find a rental property and clothes in the short-term and their insurance company told them Sunday it would take at least two years to rebuild their home.
Crews were still looking for a woman with a home in the town of Superior and a man from the nearby community of Marshall. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said their homes were “deep in hot debris and covered with snow. It is a difficult task.”
