It is officially summer, which means wildfire season in Colorado. We are currently experiencing one of our largest fires of record, the Aspen Acres fire. It has been scarry; and has been estimated it will not be fully contained for quite awhile. We live in the area north of the fire. Early on, we prepared partially for evacation, if necessary. Needless to say, it is hard to decide what is important to take with us. In the meantime, quilting is my emotional support 'animal'; so I worked on this quilt, called "Fire Storm".
Since 100% containment of this fire will not totally happen soon, the containment line in the quilt shows there are still danger spots elsewhere.
THE STATS: Fire Storm, 2026, 26" x 26", Paper Pieced, Machine Pieced, Machine Quilted. Nerd Report: 64 three-inch blocks, 650 pieces with the border.
More about the Aspen Acres Fire ----- We watched the news closely, as the pre-evacuation area was about 5 miles south of us and the fire actually several miles south of that. It has impacted us only as it forced us to gather together important documents, family photos, a few important momentos; and to consider future down-sizing (including a very large quilt collection!).
I followed constantly social media reports about the fire. The best reports were from the twice daily reports from the Incident Commander of the fire. The first two weeks of this fire were under the command of a well trained, and competent unit from Alaska. The Northern Rockies Complex Incident Management Team from Montana then took over. There is now a third team at work. There have been many experienced fire fighters from many states working this fire, for which Coloradans are more than grateful!
Even though I worked in offices of the U. S. Forest Service for three years in the 1960s; I have finally learned more in the last weeks about their dedication to the work involved. I've improved my vocabulary --- I understand the meanings more clearly of 'contour felling', 'slop', 'super scooper', 'hot shot', 'hot spot', 'mop up', 'dozline', 'black line', 'mitigation', 'numbers like 100,000+ acres, 1,800 fire fighters'; plus important old words like 'family', 'community', 'volunteer', 'faith', and 'hope'.
As of this posting on August 4, 2026, the containment at Aspen Acres is at 71%, and now they are down to 360 fire fighters. At the height of the fire, there were as many as 1800 fire fighters working the fire, which began in June 2026.
The quilt photos were taken at the Canon City Royal Gorge Park, where there are still wild fire scars from a devastating fire in June 2013.
