BOULDER, CO. (KFGO) – It’s a day a Fargo couple will never forget. Craig and Jane Lemieux, visiting family members in Boulder, were close enough to see to the massive wind-whipped wildfires north of Denver. They were on the outer edge of the mandatory evacuations Thursday.
Craig Lemieux says he likes to consider himself a “North Dakota tough guy” but he says he was scared. He says things happened so quickly it didn’t seem real.
By afternoon, the family left, taking back roads to Longmont, a town 15 miles north of Boulder to stay with friends.
As winds died down by evening, they returned to Boulder and were stunned by the devastation they saw along the way. Entire neighborhoods were burned to the ground in Louisville, a town they visited several times earlier this week. Craig Lemieux says it’s “heartbreaking.”
Boulder County authorities say as many as 600 homes were likely destroyed and there were no known deaths. The fires started following an extremely dry fall and no snow.
