Booksellers Among Those Affected by Colorado Wildfires

Wildfires covered hundreds of thousands of acres in Colorado, as approximately 1,800 firefighters from around the country headed to the state to battle blazes that have erupted in severe drought conditions. By Thursday, approximately 90,000 acres in the foothills south of Denver were burning, and officials estimated that over 150,000 acres statewide were affected by a number of fires.

Officials said that wildfires were not a direct threat to Denver, though the fallout of smoke and ash had hit the city. However, the 10,600-acre fire that erupted near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, about 150 miles west of Denver, on Saturday, June 8, destroyed 25 buildings, damaged 20 more, and caused the evacuation of approximately 3,500 residents, as reported by the Rocky Mountain News.

Among those in Glenwood Springs forced to quickly leave their homes was bookseller Sharon Graves, owner of Through the Looking Glass. Graves told BTW that she closed the store five minutes early on Saturday after looking outside and seeing the sobering skyline. "It’s an almost unreal image," she said, "an orange-black glow, because the smoke just turns this eerie black and you just see those clouds billowing and billowing over the mountains."

Graves rushed to join her daughter at home, and, only minutes after arriving, she heard authorities outside with bullhorns alerting residents that they had five minutes to evacuate. Graves met her husband back in town and spent the night in her Toyota Camary parked behind the bookstore.

While Mary Singer-Brickner, the manager of the Book Train bookstore, was ultimately not forced to evacuate her home, she said that, when the store closed on Saturday, "it was looking really scary." She told BTW that, from her home, located on a plateau overlooking Glenwood Springs, she could see much of the progress of the fire, including the point at which, driven by gusting winds, it had jumped across Interstate 70. She said that the fire had been caused by a decades-long smoldering fire in an underground coal seam, and noted that "it’s going to take a while to put these fires out…. It’s dry and crispy and windy." As Graves noted: "It’s hard to describe how dry it is here…. I saw pine trees that are probably 50 feet high just go -- like a match stick."

Both businesses quickly reopened, and both hoped that the bookstores would provide a sense of community. "We just need continuity for people," said Graves. "[The store] is a connecting point for people."

Economically, the wildfires are hitting Glenwood Springs at a crucial time. "This is our high season -- it’s bigger than winter," said Singer-Brickner. Tourism is a $7 billion industry for the state. Graves told BTW that the town’s 105th annual strawberry festival, set for Father’s Day weekend, had been postponed, along with a number of related events. But for now, the positive reports from firefighters far outweighed the coming weeks’ economic uncertainty. -- Dan Cullen