VIDEO: A fire burned more than 10 acres near the Leyden Rock community in Arvada on Thursday afternoon, forcing evacuations and reigniting residents’ concerns about inadequate emergency escape routes from their neighborhood. The blaze occurred near 82nd Avenue in Arvada before firefighters brought it under control. Residents Carmen Spagnola and his neighbor Sue were among those forced to evacuate as flames pushed toward their homes.
“Oh ya, we pretty much saw flames coming through here,” said Spagnola, describing how close the fire came to residential areas. “My wife noticed it, and she said, ‘There is fire out there. I said, ‘Really, a fire?” Sue initially mistook the blaze for something less serious. “We saw the smoke and I thought, ‘Oh, some people are burning trash,'” she said. “I said this is bigger than a trash fire.”
The fire came dangerously close to homes, with Sue noting firefighters were “actually hosing down our house when I pulled up and he said get out of here, get out of here–you’re not supposed to be here.” The evacuation highlighted a longstanding concern among Leyden Rock residents that 82nd Avenue serves as the only evacuation road out of their community. During the emergency, residents experienced firsthand the traffic bottleneck they had feared.
“If this whole community had to get out of here, we would be jammed up, no question,” Spagnola said. “You are kind of boxed in by the railroad tracks, so you can’t really escape going the other direction.”
