What I Saw in Colorado's Largest Wildfire

Heartbreak and heroism.

That’s what I saw last week in Beulah, one of the communities hardest hit by one of America’s largest wildfires. The Aspen Acres Fire, now the seventh-largest in Colorado history, has burned roughly 100,000 acres.

Block after block, all that remained were charred buildings. The heartbreak was as heavy as the smoke that hung in the air.

Devastating view inside the iconic Horseshoe Lodge in Beulah, Colorado, recently burned down by the Aspen Acres Fire

Bedrooms where parents tucked their children in at night had been reduced to ashes. Dining rooms where families once gathered were barely recognizable. Over 300 homes have been destroyed in this fire alone.

Walking through the burn scar, I thought about the families who lost nearly everything, the firefighters and first responders risking their lives to protect others, and the long road ahead to help this community recover—and prevent more tragedies like this one.

Read my latest op-ed in the Colorado Sun here.

The hard truth is that wildfires aren’t going away.

As one veteran firefighter recently said of the Aspen Acres Fire: “I’ve been a firefighter in Colorado for 40 years, and I have never seen conditions like we’re seeing out there right now.”

Climate change is making our worst drought in 1,200 years even more dangerous, fueling larger, more destructive wildfires.

Beulah Fire Chief Bryan Ware leads me and Senator Bennet on a survey of the burn site

Meeting this challenge will require all of us, local, state, and federal governments, along with every Coloradan, working together.

We know what works: treating climate change like the emergency it is, better forest management and investments in cutting-edge firefighting technology.

I wrote more about those solutions in a recent Colorado Sun op-ed here. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it, and join us in the fight against wildfires.

Colorado has always come together in times of hardship. We can do it again. If we work together now, we can build a safer, more resilient future.