FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Teams of several Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief units have responded in the wake of deadly wildfires that scorched tens of thousands of acres in Colorado, killed at least two and destroyed hundreds of homes.
Two units that normally do mud-out work in the wake of floods, are doing “ash-out” jobs in neighborhoods claimed by the fire. The job involves sifting through the damaged homes, collecting any possessions that might be salvaged, discarding the rest and then removing the ash from the site.
Carter said the ash and even large debris must me wetted down before transport, making the job that much harder and lasting about two days for an average size home.
“In a mud-out job there’s still a house, and here it’s just burnt to nothing,” Carter said. “You have to wet the ash down before you can haul it so it doesn’t fly out as you’re hauling it down the road. If there’s a refrigerator that has been totally burnt up, you have to rinse all the ash off of it before you can put it in a trailer. It’s very labor intensive.”
Carter said that, more than anything, the Missourians working are struggling against the change in altitude. The area they’re working in is at 7,000-9,000 feet above sea level, in contrast to Missouri’s average of only 800 feet.
A brand-new sandbag unit is working to combat the flooding that often comes after large-scale wildfires.
“All the vegetation is gone that was holding the dirt in place, and flooding has become a huge issue,” Carter said.
A Missouri incident command unit is working in cooperation with a similar unit from the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma at Canyon Ridge Baptist Church in Fort Collins.
Carter estimates Missouri teams will be working a month or longer.