Early Moments Of Residents Fighting Marshall Fire Show Chaos
MARSHALL, Colo. (CBS4) - In the minutes after the Marshall Fire started, people tried desperately to get hold of it.
"And there was a firestorm," said Somerset McCarty, who operates a Christmas tree lighting business with a warehouse in Marshall.
It started for him when he was enroute to a store and got a text from an employee that read simply, "Fire." There had been no time to elaborate.
He was back within minutes of the start of the fire, and they got to work. The woman who texted from his office hurriedly helped tracked down keys to company trucks out back that needed to be moved. Video he recorded to a Facebook Live shows Somerset and others helping.
He and a worker picked up shovels and put out hot spots.
"Oh my God, look at this!" he exclaimed at one point as two houses burned close by and a large propane cannister lay on the ground near them.
"Hey sir! We should get out of here. It's getting really bad!"
The worker was in a neighboring yard, grabbing a hose.
"The smoke was overcoming him, and so a couple times he had to leave," said Somerset. The fire had raced off the hilltop where it apparently started on property belonging to the 12 Tribes religious sect.
It leaped over the sect's housing and down on homes below. Investigators still have not established how the fire started, but the property is close by Highway 93. A sect member Monday night said they will await the decision of investigators before commenting.
Somerset's video shows what people chose as they hurried out.
"You can never imagine what a fire or a natural disaster is like until you're faced with it, and you freeze. You don't know what to grab."
Some grabbed musical instruments and thought about animals that may have been caught inside. They wondered why there were so few firefighters.
"I mean like there's eight firefighters for this whole huge fire," he's heard saying on the video.
They did not realize what was going on beyond Marshall.
"We just thought it was a local fire. We didn't realize it had travelled so quickly, until someone said it got a hotel in Superior."
Then it made sense. They were in Superior and Louisville and other places too, evacuating people and setting up to fight the fire. In those communities, too, people were helping. Picking up a hose or a shovel, helping neighbors get out.
In winds stronger than 100 mph, this was a fire that chased and killed and laid waste homes and much more.
"Just being around the people, that were about to lose it all. It's just really sad," said Somerset.