High Chateau Fire

Although the High Chateau Fire is completely contained at this point, we are still very low in moisture and fire danger is still extreme!!

The fire started on June 27th while we were in Iowa - we received notification through our phone that subdivisions were being evacuated and we were anxious to get home on Saturday night!  For the next few days, we were on pins and needles not knowing if the fire would spread enough to evacuate us or not!  Smoke was in the air as there was another fire over by Fairplay and the windows needed to be shut during the day to keep the smell out!

Our county and the county next to us went to a Stage III Fire Ban - we've never been on that in all the years we've lived here!  Basically it means no outdoor fires, no charcoal OR propane grills, no ATV's or chainsaws or lawn mowers and no smoking outside.  The 4th was in the middle of the fire and I'm sure people were disappointed that they couldn't grill outside but the oven worked just as well for our ribs that day!

The morning of the 4th we went into Florissant to eat breakfast - the news channel was parked in the parking lot and as soon as we got out of the car, they came over and asked if they could interview us - we said yes and the gal asked us a lot of questions about the fire.  I taped the news that day as we had friends coming over for dinner and later on we watched the taped news to see if we were on.  Yes - 3 different times!  It's sure weird seeing yourself on TV!!

The night of the 5th Woodland Park got a great rain and we got a shower which was nice - the annual outdoor symphony was cancelled due to the weather - which was fine with us!!  We were relieved a few days later when we found out the fire was 100% contained!

We're not out of the woods yet - we still remain on a Stage III fire ban but are getting short showers in the afternoon - let's hope this rain continues!!