Home Care In Jamestown, CO

Jamestown and other parts of northwest Boulder County were evacuated Saturday as the Cal-Wood Fire grew to more than 7,000 acres and is still at 0% containment Saturday night.

The fire was first reported at noon near the Cal-Wood Education Center at 2282 County Road 87 Saturday afternoon, and a cause and point of origin have not yet been determined.

Boulder County sheriff’s Division Chief Mike Wagner did say Saturday night that there were no lightning strikes in the area, so the fire was likely not weather-related.

Per scanner traffic, fire crews estimated the fire to be at 3,000 acres at 3 p.m., and by 8:20 p.m. officials estimated it to be at 7,064 acres in size.

While there were several social media accounts of houses in the area burning, officials said they have not been able to confirm whether any structures were lost at this time.

But Wagner said late Saturday that based on the path of the fire, officials believe it is likely “multiple” houses were lost.

“We believe a number of structures were likely impacted,” Wagner said.

Boulder County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Haverfield said earlier Saturday that crews did not have any containment on the fire, which was not unusual for the first 24 hours.

“Wind was a factor,” Haverfield said. “We’ve had strong winds throughout the day, which caused the fire to push quickly.”

The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Mesa lab recorded gusts of up to 59 mph in Boulder County on Saturday.

In addition to Jamestown, the evacuation area includes areas north of Jamestown east through Altona.

However, evacuation orders for all areas east of North Foothills Highway were lifted at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

In total, Boulder County officials said 1,646 residences were within the mandatory evacuation area, with a population of 2,984 people.

Preevacuation warnings have been sent to areas south of Jamestown west of North Foothills Highway, and a complete evacuation map can be found at bouldercounty.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=13ab214fe2bb4da5a850df0ca0f00fc5.

Residents of Lyons have also been advised to be ready to evacuate if the fire changes directions Sunday, but at this time no mandatory orders have been issued for the town.

Wagner said the plan for Sunday was for aerial crews to hit the fire “as hard as they can” before winds picked back up later in the day. Wagner said officials did not know exactly how many units were brought in to fight the fire because of how quickly they started arriving.

This comes as fire crews are still fighting the nearby Cameron Peak Fire and the East Troublesome Fire.

“Firefighting resources are just spread really thin across the West in general,” Wagner said.

An evacuation point has been set up at Boulder County’s North Broadway Complex at 3460 N. Broadway where evacuees can find information, and will reopen at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Pets are allowed at that point, or they can be taken to The Humane Society of Boulder Valley at 2323 55th St. Livestock can be taken to the Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Road in Longmont.

The fire also caused several road closures in the area, including South St. Vrain between Peak to Peak Highway and Lyons, including Riverside Drive. County Road 87 is also closed.

U.S. 36 will remain closed between Boulder and Lyons overnight. Lee Hill Road is closed at Lefthand Canyon, as is Olde Stage Road.

Per scanner traffic, the main fire or spot fires had flared up east of North Foothills Highway near Lake of the Pines.

Road closures for #CalWoodFire-Overland @ CR 87 -Overland @ Peak To Peak -Lefthand Canyon @ James Canyon -Peak To Peak @ Hwy7 -South St. Vrain @ Old South St. Vrain -Lefthand Canyon & Hwy 36 -Hwy 36 @ Hwy 66

— Boulder Office of Disaster Management (@BoulderOEM) October 17, 2020

Heil Valley Ranch and Hall Ranch trails were already evacuated and were later closed. Lagerman Agricultural Preserve, Pella Crossing and Anne U. White Trail on Boulder County open space also were closed as the fire advanced.

Officials advised people to avoid the area to allow first responders room to work.

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Lafayette, announced FEMA has authorized federal funds to help fight the fire through a Fire Management Assistance Grant.

“As our state continues to experience these devastating wildfires, it is critical that the federal government provide critical assistance when additional funding and resources are needed,” Neguse said in a statement. “I am relieved to see this funding come through and I know it will bring much-needed relief to our state and will support those on the ground with the necessary resources. And I thank all of the brave firefighters who are out there every single day to protect our state from these catastrophic wildfires.”

A 13-year-old girl living in the Boulder County mountain town of Jamestown at the time of the 1894 flood was interviewed, years later, about what she had witnessed. Of the community’s only church, she stated, “That second morning (of the flood), the creek commenced cutting the ground out from under it. Sometime between 11 and 12 o’clock it went down. I’ll never forget that bell. It tolled as the building slid down into the water.”

Worshippers regrouped, at first in a residence, and life continued. On Saturday, Aug. 19, the Jamestown Community Church will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. But church records are sketchy, and the congregation’s roots go further back in time.

First settled in the 1860s, Jamestown (also called Jimtown) was a gold mining camp that claimed 200 residents by 1882. A mining company’s report noted that the community included three general stores, a blacksmith shop, a hotel, two saloons, a mining brokerage office, an assay office, a saw mill, several gold-processing mills, and the church, as well as cabins and tents.

An undated town history by early resident Florence Walker mentions that this first church building was located “where the fire hall now stands.” Confirmed on an 1880 map, the church is identified as the “Union Church” and likely was affiliated with the American Sunday School Union.

The church building also shows up in a photo of Jamestown taken in the late 1880s. A resident at that time later stated, “The community church was used by all denominations in a fine free manner,” adding that “both church and Sunday School services were well-attended.”

As for preachers, it was customary at the time for one preacher to serve several communities. George White in 1896 lived and preached in Gold Hill but also held services in Jamestown. Others who ministered were circuit riders who made the rounds.

In 1916, Jamestown resident Pauline Lehman started a Sunday school for children. The kids’ classes, along with regular church services, met in Jamestown’s (second) school, built in 1897 on the site of the current school on the hill south of James Creek.

The present building of the Jamestown Community Church is located on Main Street, next to the Town Hall, and was purchased in 1934 by three church trustees. One was Ed Lehman, husband of the Sunday school teacher.

Property records, however, show that the original section of the current church building dates from the early 1900s. Supposedly, it was a dance hall, with room for feed storage, and was turned into a saloon. Today, the redesign would be called adaptive reuse.

The bell tower, with white siding, was added in the 1930s. A Daily Camera article from 1952 noted that the sanctuary’s stained glass windows came from the hallway of a house that was being torn down at 13th and Pine streets, in Boulder. The local community assisted in additional remodeling in 1957.

Church is held every Sunday at 11 a.m., and its services, as well as the upcoming anniversary event, are open to the community. “That’s what it’s all about,” said Pastor Tom Neal, adding, “It’s important to look back and reflect on our past.”

For more information, call Pastor Neal at 303-258-7768.

Carol Taylor and Silvia Pettem write about history for the Daily Camera. Email Carol at [email protected], Silvia at [email protected] or write to the Daily Camera, 2500 55th St., Suite 210, Boulder, 80301.

JAMESTOWN — Early Sunday morning, the few remaining residents of Jamestown poked their heads out of their cabin doors and, with coffee mugs in hand as they walked on what was left of crumbling roads, began to meet up with each other. Again.

Since the catastrophic flood of Little James Creek in the darkness of early Thursday morning, they’ve been checking on each other. They’ve been sharing information, pooling resources and, above all else, counting heads.

There were almost 300 of them until Friday, when military helicopters evacuated all but about 20 from this mountain town northwest of Boulder.

Jamestown lost one person, 72-year-old Joey Howlett, a beloved town fixture who was crushed inside his house by a mudslide Thursday morning.

For days, Jamestown was an inaccessible island in an epic swirl of floodwaters that crushed and mangled buildings and cars, but somehow the town remained undaunted. In Jamestown, there was only one inventory that really mattered in those first terrifying days — its people.

They had been completely trapped in town by floodwaters until the air evacuation. Then rescue crews punched through a debris-blocked road Sunday. Boulder County sheriff’s deputies have been trying to coax the remaining residents to leave because area slopes are unstable and new mudslides threaten.

Leyla Jacobs left town Friday on a Chinook because she has to get to her job and her son Brandon has to attend high school in Boulder.

Before the evacuations — 25 people per helicopter, she said — everyone had been walking around town, watching homes and town buildings collapse into torrents of water, mud and rock.

“There was a calm that was unbelievable,” Jacobs said. “You’d meet people just walking around trying to help. You could not tell the people who had just lost everything from the people like us, who were fine. Our house was fine.

“I never felt a sense of panic — just community,” she said in a telephone interview Sunday with The Denver Post.

No panic, but there was horror. Thursday had been a nightmare in living daylight.

“We watched, one by one, houses cracking off and going into the creek,” said Colleen Williams, chief EMS officer with the Jamestown Fire Department. “But everyone was accounted for — that was the best thing.”

The residents of the town, basically divided into quadrants by water-filled streets, managed to meet up Friday morning at Jamestown Elementary School after volunteers built wood-plank bridges over tamer parts of raging creeks and water-filled streets.

Volunteers had knocked on doors and taken inventory of who was where and who needed what. At the school, they shared that information.

At first, Jacobs said, most townspeople thought evacuations would be limited to the elderly and medical emergencies — and the woman whose son was getting married. So they strategized about sharing food, water and fuel supplies in the days ahead.

“With everything going on in Colorado, we felt like we were small potatoes and no one would come to get us all,” Jacobs said. “We felt like we were going to be safe, but isolated for a week or two.”

During that meeting, the clouds broke and a brief ray of sunshine was greeted with cheers, she said, even though they knew the reprieve was only temporary.

There were also prayers for their friend Joey. There were plans for people who still had houses to adopt families that did not.

Jacobs said she and her family are not really mountain folk — not even good campers — but she was impressed by how full Jamestown was of people who knew how to wrangle the necessary resources.

“No one got real overexcited,” said Leon Hill, 76, whose large supply of canned and dried foods was coming in handy.

In the depths of the disaster, he said he told his wife: “Hell, this is a good place to die.”

But later he recanted.

“My wife said, ‘We’re all on a journey going home.’ That’s a fact, I said, but I’m sure as hell not homesick,” Hill said.

Then came the news Friday of a townwide evacuation by helicopter. About 280 people, their pets in crates and on their laps, flew out. They each were allowed a personal bag.

“They let everything on,” Jacobs said. “(Firefighters) carried my two dogs on. Unbelievable human service. The most incredible thing, after they took such good care of us, as we were walking down, they were thanking us for doing what they asked. And they were still taking inventory.”

Williams, among those left behind to mind the town, said they would continue to pull together to get through the days of isolation ahead.

“The devastation has been unbearable,” James- town Mayor Tara Schoedinger said Sunday. “But we’re ready to begin the recovery process.”

“The town is devastated, but not all of us,” said 66-year-old Anne Breiler. “Today I’m going to shovel more water out of my studio, and then I’m going to take a shower and wash my hair (at a neighbor’s). And that will feel so good.”

Electa Draper: 303-954-1276, [email protected] or twitter.com/electadraper