Home » United States » The Bobcat Gulch Wildfire (June 2000)

The Bobcat Gulch Wildfire began Monday morning, June 12, 2000 in Bobcat Gulch, just north of Drake, CO. On Tuesday, June 20 (8 days after it started), the fire was declared 100% contained. The total burn area was 10,600 acres and 22 structures (mostly homes) were lost. The total cost to fight the fire (not including losses) was $3.5 million. The last count of insurance claims I saw was $15 million.

The Bobcat Gulch Wildfire (June 2000)

Kab
2004-09-15 10:03:41

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The Bobcat Gulch fire is the biggest fire in the history of the Roosevelt National Forest.

Larimer County created a web site about the Bobcat fire that has some pictures. Their news releases about the fire are archived on their News Releases page.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan newspaper has archived all of their articles about the fire on their Bobcat Wildfire Extra page.

The US Forest Service also put things on their "late breaking news" page of their Arapaho and roosevelt National Forests web site, although this info may go away if/when there's another fire. There are some good maps showing burn areas here.

I was able to watch some of it via my Cabin Cam that I have set up at my house (usually to see how much snow has fallen in the winter!). Others seemed to be doing the same thing, the Cabin Cam has never gotten more than 500 hits in any week, the week of the fire it got 10,424 hits! Some of the shots are available in the Cabin Cam archive.

This wildfire was in my area and came frighteningly close to my house (less than a mile as the crow flies), but I was extremely lucky and had no damage. This is a diary of my experiences related to this event.

Monday, June 12, 2000
I had returned from Austin over the weekend, having spent a week visiting friends and my parents and celebrating my 40th birthday. I had stayed in Denver Sunday so I hadn't yet gotten back to the house and was looking foward to being home that night.
I was sitting at work, thinking about going to lunch about 12:30pm. I casually clicked on the Cabin Cam just to take a look at the view and saw smoke across the valley from the house! I went to the window of my building and looked out and saw a huge cloud over Fort Collins. I couldn't see the source because of a new building on the HP site, so I had to go outside to walk around that building.

saw smoke ...