LARIMER COUNTY, Colo. — About one dozen Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief crew members are cleaning up homes that burned to their foundations in the Alexander Mountain Fire in July.
Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief responds to natural disasters all over the country to provide help. The group plans to work on 21 homes that were burned in the massive wildfire. As of Thursday, they have completed their job on seven of those homes.
“We are doing clean up and recovery, doing ash-out,” said Dennis Bellz, the state director. “We do, have been doing some sifting. We’re trying to find things individuals might think could have survived the fire. A lot of times we find jewelry.”
As of Thursday, this CBDR team has been working for about two weeks, with two weeks’ left of work still left. The group is made up of mostly people in their 70’s, and they are all volunteer. Some came from as far as Wyoming. They are staying at David Hoffman’s property during their stay.
“We’ve got about eight or ten people that sleep here every night,” Hoffman said. “Then we have another four or so we put up in our house up there. These guys who left their lives, they could be home, hanging out, just living the good life, but they’re here coming to help my neighbors.”
“We are trying to bring help, healing and hope to these people,” Bellz said.
They know recovery will take a while and there will be bumps along the way, but CBDR hopes they can make the recovery smoother.
“We have a new beginning just like those plants you see that came out of the black ash,” Bellz said. “That’s the new life and this is new life for the people that lost everything that they have.”
