'We Already Have Our Stuff Packed': Communities Near Colorado Wildfires Watching With Anxious Hearts
DOTSERO, Colo. (CBS4) - Several mountain communities are on standby as wildfires rage on their doorstep. Some communities, like Dotsero, which is located just east of the Grizzly Creek Fire in Eagle County, remain under pre-evacuation orders.
Walter Valdez, who lives in Dotsero's Two Rivers Village subdivision, spent Saturday finding things he could control while the uncertainty of the Grizzly Creek Fire grew in the distance.
"Every once in a while you'll see some black smoke -- like right now," Valdez said. "Then the helicopters come in and it calms it down a little bit, but it's a tough battle for them out there."
For several hours, Valdez sprayed water from a garden hose all over his yard, fence and home. While he acknowledged he didn't know if it would offer any protection against a fire, he said it helped his piece of mind.
For now, Valdez will stay at his home, but he's already packed up and is ready to leave whenever county officials make the call or he no longer feels safe.
"I'm very concerned and my neighbors are very concerned too. Most of my neighbors already left and they got local hotels," Valdez said. "If that fire gets over the next ridge, I'm not going to wait around for any alerts, I'm just getting my little puppy and running out of here."
Around the same time, Elke Wells and her daughter drove into Dotsero from their home in Gypsum. The two wanted to see the firefight on a nearby ridge up close.
"It doesn't seem like we know which way it's going in any given moment, so definitely that it's this close to Dotsero right now is definitely concerning," Wells said.
For Wells, there's enough concern to be thinking about the next steps, despite living in a community that is not under any evacuation or pre-evacuation orders.
"We already have our stuff, important stuff, packed and ready to go in case we're next on the pre-evacuation list," She said.
Several other homeowners in Dotsero and Gypsum told CBS4 they would wait for an evacuation order before leaving. In a weekend update on Facebook, an incident commander in the efforts to contain the Grizzly Creek Fire said there will be no changes to evacuation status for cities on either side of the fire for now.
