Richardson, The Denver Post Veterinarian Dr. Romy Nicoletta, right, checks out Dancer, a horse owned by Dennis Ceremuga, left, after rescuing him and two others from the burned area one week after the Spring Creek Fire forced Ceremuga to evacuate from his home in Piney Ridge Ranch on July 4, 2018, in La Veta. Richardson, The Denver Post Veterinarian Dr. Romy Nicoletta checks out Dancer, a horse owned by Kate McCabe, right, outside of their home in Piney Ridge Ranch on July 4, 2018. McCabe and her husband Dennis Ceremuga had to evacuate the night of the Spring Creek Fire and were only able to let their horses loose from their corrals. The corrals and the woods around their house burned but their 3 horses and their home survived. Because the fire was too intense the couple were unable to get to the horses until today. The horses have been in the burn area since the beginning of the fire a week ago. They were hungry and thirsty but otherwise in generally good health. The Spring Creek fire has burned 94,125 acres and is currently 5% contained. Richardson, The Denver Post Veterinarian Dr. Romy Nicoletta, second from right, checks out Dancer, a horse owned by Dennis Ceremuga, right, after rescuing them one week after the Spring Creek Fire forced them to evacuate from their home in Piney Ridge Ranch on July 4, 2018. Ceremuga and his wife Kate McCabe had to evacuate the night of the Spring Creek Fire and were only able to let their horses loose from their corrals. The corrals and the woods around their house burned but their 3 horses and their home survived. Because the fire was too intense the couple were unable to get to the horses until today. The horses have been in the burn area since the beginning of the fire a week ago. They were hungry and thirsty but otherwise in generally good health. The horses' owners, Dennis Ceremuga and his wife Kate McCabe, had to evacuate the night of the Spring Creek Fire and were only able to let their spring creek fire loose from their corrals. Richardson, The Denver Post Firefighter Ed Wishard, with back to camera, gets an update on the fire from task force leader Evan Day, right, after the morning briefing at the spike camp spring creek fire before heading out on the Spring Creek Fire on July 4, 2018, in La Veta. The fire has now burned 94,125 acres and crews have only 5% containment. A human response is ineffective. But a cold front swept in overnight turning the fire 180 degrees. It was a good thing for homes on the eastern flank, but an absolutely devastating turn of events for neighborhoods and pine forests on the western flank, Brack said. With wind gusts of 35 mph, the fast-moving blaze defied measurement, Brack said. Officials say the total number of damaged homes stands at 119 and the number of demolished homes is 132, although authorities know those figures are a small percentage of the affected homes. Dangerous conditions have made it too difficult for county officials to go into neighborhoods and count how many homes have been damaged or destroyed. Tallies are expected to rise significantly. Officially, the fire swept over an additional at night, when wildfires normally lay down as temperatures drop. The thermodynamics of this historic wildfire demand unusual tactics by firefighters. Crews have bulldozed trenches around subdivisions and homes, installed sprinkling systems and back-burned brush to create extremely wide fire breaks. But the blaze remains only 5 percent contained. The wildfire rained a shower of embers on the Paradise Acres subdivision west of Walsenburg after a platoon of firefighters spent days of heavy labor trying to protect the community using scrapers, fire retardant drops and tree and bush clearance. Having described the most devastating night of the 8-day-old wildfire, Brack found reason to be optimistic: Not one person has been hurt or killed by the fire. Spring creek fire Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.
