[goopthink]

I live in the neighborhood, but we are just outside of the evacuation zone. This part of Colorado is — in other times — a really nice mixed-use set of communities. It has a lot of open fields, farms, businesses, and “old town” town centers right alongside very dense apartment buildings and single family homes. We haven’t had snow or rain in almost two months, and everything is very dry. I saw the wind bringing flames along these open fields (like kindling) right into Louisville and Superior, and then it lights up the neighborhood, spreading house to house, fueled by wind that has brought down trees and power lines (friends in Boulder getting some rolling blackouts earlier). These nice parks and open fields are like turbo boosts from neighborhood to neighborhood. Any other combination - not as dry, not as windy, and it would have been a small localized fire. Everyone is packing their cars even if outside of the mandatory or pre-evacuation zones. We are supposed to have a massive snowstorm tomorrow morning as well, which makes this very painful - large fires normally burn in loosely populated areas, but this is as dense as any major suburban center.

[goopthink]

Here’s a good visual of that in action: https://twitter.com/ShaulTurner/status/1476722513195405315?s... #

But really, any #MarshallFire twitter post right now.

[dredmorbius]

Nitter link: https://nitter.kavin.rocks/search?q=%23MarshallFire

[01100011]

> Any other combination - not as dry, not as windy, and it would have been a small localized fire.

If what I heard was correct and they're having 110 mph wind gusts, any fire is likely to spread, even in a neighborhood. I agree the open space makes it spread even faster, but with that kind of wind, fire reaches a new level of destruction.