Spring Creek fire

The Liberatores started their 2 1/2 hour journey to La Veta at nearly 11:30 a.m. on July 15. The Castle Rock family of three packed into their Jeep and traveled south along Interstate 25, on their way to inspect their Paradise Acres property damaged in the Spring Creek Fire.

Slowly, the rolling green hills of southern Douglas County faded to golden, arid-looking fields as they made their way between Colorado Springs, Pueblo and ultimately into Spanish Peaks Country.

Once in La Veta, a sleepy town of roughly 800 that looks up to the Spanish Peaks themselves, the Liberatores — Jim, Kim and their 9-year-old daughter, Francesca — made a pit stop to gather information about disaster relief assistance from a Red Cross booth.

From there, traveling west on U.S. Highway 160, the family saw its first signs of the Spring Creek Fire — swaths of green, summer trees lining hillsides interspersed with areas of blackened timbers.

The pattern continued, Kim noted, as they reached their subdivision of Paradise Acres, with green and black patches covering the countryside like camouflage. On their property, things changed.

The family cabin stood, singed on the south side where their two-story garage once was. After the fire came through, the garage burned to a pile of rubble. Their cabin, although tidy and neat inside, smelled of musk and smoke.

The fire, which scorched more than 100,000 acres, had swept through Paradise Acres on the Fourth of July. Walking through acreage surrounding the cabin felt like walking through a black and white photo — everything on a charred grayscale.

Within a roughly half-mile radius of the cabin, some homes went seemingly unscathed, and others looked to be total losses.

Jim and Kim walked freely throughout the hollowed forest. Kim was there roughly two weeks before the fire reached Paradise Acres, when the forest was so thick she could not pass anywhere except on trails, she said. On July 15, the trio hiked in-between stumps and fallen logs, and atop soil that felt more like soot or sand underfoot.

“It's completely discombobulating,” Jim said.

Francesca didn't know what to think of it all, she said. The family's next step would be hearing from their insurance what could be done for any smoke damage inside and when the garage could be replaced. Kim was grateful their home survived but the loss of nature would take time to process, she said.

“That's hard to see,” Kim said. “It's surreal.”

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