It was a bright and sunny day, about 73°F, with just a hint of a breeze and a few friendly clouds in the sky…an absolutely beautiful and normal Boulder day. There I was, minding my business, working at my desk (the average forecasting reports while collecting millions of dollars; in short doing my job amazingly) when all of a sudden I hear a loud POP

I walked out onto my balcony to check out the sound. Now I know what your thinking;

“This dude has is own private balcony outside of his swank office that overlooks Eldorado Canyon and the Flatirons?!?! What the heck?!”

It took a few seconds for my brain to sort out what I was seeing. A woman from Xcel was working on the telephone pole because there is going to be some demolition to the building next door, and apparently she was supposed to be removing the power from said building so there would be no FIRE issues…ha!

What I saw was this same Xcel employee on the ladder against the telephone pole with flames completely surrounding the base. It took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing and then I jumped to action. I yelled to the office manager (who is next door to my office) that there was a fire behind the building!

We crossed paths as he sprinted for the stairs towards the debacle while I ran into the main office in search of a fire extinguisher. I then yell “Where’s the fire extinguisher!!!” The owner of the company (and the building) went into a ‘what the hell is going on?’ rant and together we ran across the room to the clearly labeled, “Fire Extinguisher,” on the wall. He grabbed it out as I ripped it from his hands and ran for the back steps and out of the building.

All of this happened within about a minute from the time I had seen the fire to when I was running down the stairs. Some renters on the ground floor must have seen the flames from the kitchen were trying to sort out a garden hose. I stopped about 20 feet from the flames to break off the safety on the extinguisher and pull the pin. While I was doing this the renters (2 guys) were seemingly ready to assist in the efforts when the guy holding the hose was freaking out while yelling “THERE’S NO PRESSURE! SH#%”

Their eye’s scanned the garden hose for a kink and cleared the kink just as I started laying down the nitrogen-based compound from the extinguisher around the edges of the fire, to keep it from spreading. The guys at the hose started to lay suppressive water-support outside of the ring of fire, while I told them to continue dousing the grass since its pretty darn dry out here and massive wild fires start in just this way.

By this point most of the building was either standing around on the ground floor, looking for a way to help OR standing on the large balcony off the main office watching everything go down. I confirmed with the electrician that the cables she was coiling dropped to the ground and were live, hence started a fire (which is why she was removing them in the first place from the other building…)

I finished my first pass…whew…the fire was under control. A few more passes and suppressive support with a garden hose and the fire was OUT. I fought this fire….and I won.

I was looking around at everyone who was just standing there…not really expecting applause or recognition or a “thanks for saving the building from burning down / saving the beautiful land around us from a deadly wildfire,” and no one said anything. I walked back upstairs to the office as if nothing happened.

This whole event only took all of 5 minutes and this morning as I look outside at the burnt area that seems so small, it could have truly been a devastating disaster that quickly got out of control and put a lot of people in danger. During the incident, the fire seemed unreal and bigger than life itself. It’s funny how your perspective can shift in a split second.