LOUISVILLE, Colo. — Families in Louisville and Superior got their first glimpse of the devastation the Boulder County fire left behind.
On Friday, in a neighborhood south of Harper Lake, Dawn Paluch hoped her home was spared. She and her husband evacuated their home with just a few things.
“We lost everything,” she told a neighbor as she hugged her in tears. “The house, the cars, nothing is recognizable.”
Paluch was only able to figure out which house was hers by a toy truck she put just outside her home.
All of the houses that surrounded her home were gone.
Emergency crews patrolled the area for much of Friday as they put out hot spots. They attempted to keep homeowners away, but some people like Paluch needed to see the heartache themselves.
“I had a pretty extensive art collection that I inherited from my father," Paluch said. "I didn’t take any of it out. I’m just so angry at myself, you know, how could I have not taken at least one of them?”
“I could hear my father saying, 'You know, be glad that you’re safe,' but I don’t know, I don’t know how you make sense of this," she added.
Families over the coming days will ask that very question.
Paluch and her husband will begin the insurance process. They’re thankful they have another home they can stay at in Kentucky in the meantime, and a family all in one piece.
“We stayed up all night long just hugging each other," she said as she began to cry. "We are just glad that we have each other and we have our kids."