Ep. 213 Responding to Wildfire with Jeremy Krones

Polly Gallagher chats with Jeremy Krones, Grand County resident, East Troublesome Wildfire victim, and trustee on the Grand County Library District public library board. Together, they go through the immediate experience of a devastating wildfire in Grand County from October 2020 through the lens of resident and library leadership. Starting with the fateful day of the pre-evacuation order through to the final rebuilding of a home and celebration of community. Get prepared and stay safe.

Content Notes: This episode discusses loosing a home to wildfire.

Outline:

00:20 – October 21, 2020, pre-evac to evac order in minutes
6:48 – The days that followed, from the eyes of an evacuee
 8:55 – The days that followed, from the eyes of the library response
 11:05 – Be aware of vocational awe
 12:35 – Ducks in a row
 16:02 - Moving forward
 20:55 – Collectors of Memories
 22:10 – Final thoughts
 24:19 – Closing
 

Resources:

Local Emergency Alert Systems
InciWeb
Watch Duty – Wildfire Maps and Alerts
Colorado Cultural & Historic Resources Task Force
Vocational Awe

Transcript

Responding to Wildfire with Jeremy Krones

[Music]

[00:06]

Kate B: Welcome to sunshine and stories.

Kate C: The podcast that shines a light on big ideas and bright moments in Colorado's public and school libraries.

Kate B: Brought to you by the library development team at the Colorado State Library.

[00:20]

Polly: On October 21st, 2020, the unusual happened. The combination of low humidity, wind gusts reaching 55 to 60 mph, and dry vegetation caused embers from the East Troublesome Fire to jump roads and ridges. The main fire exploded within hours to over 100,000 acres in size and swept through residential areas towards the towns of Grand Lake and Granby.

I'm Polly Gallagher, Colorado State Library Leadership Consultant and former Grand County Library District Executive Director. I'm joined today on Sunshine and Stories with Jeremy:  for seven years, Jeremy?

Jeremy: That's correct.

Polly: Seven years and current Grand County Library District President. 

We'll share our first-hand stories as residents and library leadership members working through a community crisis and the lessons we learned. Welcome, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Thank you for having me.

Polly: Let's go ahead and start out. And if you don't mind, your experience the night of Wednesday, October 21st was harrowing, to say the least. If you're willing, can you please share what it was like?

Jeremy: Sure. So my career in Grand County was I was the executive director of Colorado Headwaters Land Trust. I did private land conservation, which introduced me to the broad landscape and the landowners of Grand County. So, I was always very aware of what was going on. We had been watching East Troublesome grow over the previous week or two, and I remember leaving my office the afternoon/evening of Wednesday, October 21st.

And when I hit, I always lived up and around Grand Lake. My office was in Granby, so I was driving north on 34. And I remember seeing the sky, the western half of the sky was black and the eastern half of the sky was bright blue, as we have often days in Colorado. 

I got home, took my dog for a walk, and I remember people had been talking about wildfires smelling like campfires. And on my walk, I said, nope, it doesn't smell like a campfire. It smells like a group of 10-year-old boys learning how to build a campfire. As I used to be that person; it was a lot of smoke, it was a lot of soot, it was very dirty. I remember the sky was very close, right? It was so low. 

When I got back into my house after the walk was the first call I received from the sheriff's department saying pre-evac, right? Pre-evacuation calls are get your stuff together, get ready. Usually, they came a day or maybe a few hours in advance. I took that call. It was automated. I called two of my neighbors, both of whom are full-time residents. We have a lot of part-timers as well in the neighborhood, and one of my neighbors had received that call, the other one didn't. And so, it was good that I called them and just make sure that they got in the news. 

I was on the phone with my dad thinking that I had a few hours to prepare when I got the second call saying, “You need to leave.” So, I called my neighbors again. One of them got that call. The other one didn't. It was about 15 minutes between the 1st and 2nd call. And I was on the road within 15 minutes of that second call. I had both my dog and my cat in the car. I was probably about 10 minutes from my house heading south on Highway 34 when the fire was on the highway. 

Both lanes of 34 were southbound. You could only come north if you had emergency flashers on, like, you know, red and red and blue lights. And then when I hit the intersection of 34 and 40, most people were turning left. They were going east. They were going to go down to the Fraser Valley or all the way to Denver. My brother was telling me to drive all the way to Boston. 

I instead turned right because I had two friends in Hot Sulphur Springs who had texted me that day saying, hey, just in case you get evacuated, come to our house. They were behind the fire. All of our dogs knew each other. I knew it was going to be a safe space for me. And a deputy, a sheriff's deputy, actually stopped me as I turned and he said, “Do you know where you're going?” And I said, “Yep.” And I told him who I was and who I was going to. It was someone in law enforcement, their house I was going to. And the deputy, you know, laughed and set me on my way. So that was my evacuation journey that evening.

[04:34]

Polly: Wow. So dog, cat.

Jeremy: Dog. Yep.

Polly: And the clothes you were wearing pretty much.

Jeremy: Clothes I was wearing and a handful of personal items. You know, I did not prepare. In hindsight, of course, I didn't prepare as well as I should have. But I did, you know, I swept to the top of my dresser into a bag. So that's where my bolo ties and my belt buckles -- the things that people know me that I value. A handful of personal items and religious items and a couple of first edition books that I had that I knew exactly where they were in the house. But outside of that, I would say 95% of my belongings went up in the fire.

Polly: Wow. And I think about this, you mentioned that you had the evac calls that you received. So, you're signed up for the alert system, local emergency alert system. Your neighbor wasn't, so it was thankful, I guess, a good thing that that was in place and that you were able to reach out to them.

Jeremy: That's right. Yeah. And since then, you know, I don't recall if there was a specific system like we have now, but over the last six or seven years, the county has tried and tested and moved on from certain different alert systems. Our current one seems to be working very well. The county's really been pushing it out there. So I advocate, regardless of where you live, if your county has an alert system, sign up for it.

Polly: Yeah, excellent. And also, just keeping an eye on it. I remember that I was monitoring InciWeb and also now there's Watch Duty just to keep an eye. As I mentioned, the Cameron Fire, that was over on the other side in Larimer County, but one just didn't know. Right?

[06:09]

Jeremy: And there is... You know, there is a danger of being too informed, right? You know, you go to InciWeb or another wildfire monitoring website, and oftentimes those maps and websites will show hot spots or small fires. And so just because there's a fire on that map, I always caution people and this is from my firefighter friends as well, don't assume that every reported fire will become an East Troublesome. 

Sometimes it's a monitored fire or a prescribed burn, and sometimes it's just a hot spot. So, there is sometimes a burden of knowledge.

[06:50]

Polly: Appreciate that. Now, there were two, I believe there were two evacuation sites set up for the East Troublesome Fire. One was over in Summit County, one up at the Headwater Center in Grand County. I ask about, or I mention this, what were your immediate needs? Can you walk us through the next couple of days.

Jeremy: So like I said, I went to my friend's house. These two friends, one worked for the Forest Service. The other one worked for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Sheriff Shroetlin basically put the entire county on watch. And he said, if you can leave the county, do it. Just be safe. We don't know where the winds are going to go. So, the three of us then packed up their house. and caravanned down to a friend's ranch outside of Silverthorne, which is, as you said, where one of the evac centers was. 

You know, I was still in a bit of a haze. I wasn't sure what was going on, how I was supposed to be reacting, what I was supposed to be doing. There wasn't any single checklist or a single kind of chain of events that people were recommending I follow. It was very much, all right, this is what this person recommends, this is what this person says, but who should I really be listening to? So, confusion was really the theme of the next couple of days. We were in Silverthorne from Thursday to Sunday, I believe. And I did visit the evacuation center in Silverthorne. Frankly, I don't remember a whole lot, right? It was, one, it was six years ago, but it was also, I was in a haze. I was really confused and stressed, and I didn't know what was going on. I wasn't getting clear directions. 

I think the immediate need that I had was community, right? It was just being with other people because if I was on my own and I know people who were on their own immediately following evacuation, I don't know how I would have survived. How I would have really handled what was going on if I didn't have the opportunity to sit down and have a family meal with somebody. Even if I didn't know them, it was just the fact I was in the ranch house and with these other people. Oh.

Polly: I was going to say, I appreciate that from the library perspective, our emphasis was on the Grand County side, the Headwaters Center evacuation. Thinking about the population in Grand Lake at the time of the fire, the average age, I believe, was somewhere up in the 70s. And a lot of people didn't have cell phones. People were running out the door. You mentioned within 15 minutes, the fire was lapping at Highway 34. People didn't have time to get chargers. They didn't have medications. Of course, it's October. It was COVID. So I think the library, we really focused our response more on the Headwaters Center, which was in Winter Park, Fraser area, but it's something to consider for libraries. Like if there are multiple evacuation zones, either potentially you could be supportive, training people how to use cell phones, or providing some sort of story time for kids so they have that community so parents can think through things, but to do so at both evac zones, or to work with other libraries in other areas of evacuation zones for that. Just something to consider as going through this experience.

 And with this one in particular, it was so fast. I mean, people only had the clothes on their back. They didn't have anything else. And I think the library actually was providing transferring clothes to the hotels where people were staying or at the evac sites too.

Jeremy: It was unique for me because I was going the opposite direction from a lot of people Thursday morning when my friends and I were evacuating down to Silverthorne, we were heading west and coming east on 40 were lines of trucks and trailers picking up livestock. And so there was this amazing community outreach and community engagement across the county to really make sure that every living creature that could get out was able to get out. And so, we got to see that as we were the only car heading west, and everyone else was coming east.

[10:45]

Polly: And libraries as an information point and also trusted community point are excellent sources for information of where people go. I think amplifying the Office of Emergency Management's messages just to make sure that they get out as many venues, as many areas as possible. Because, yeah, that's one of the, not only are you, what's going on, what's happening, but where to go in order to find out what's happening and what's going on.

[11:05]

Jeremy: Right. You know, and that's a great point. And I would also caution, though, and this is a term that that you helped teach me, vocational awe, where we don't want to burden our librarians. Our librarians are not social workers. They are not emergency personnel. They are resource centers. But they, you know, many of our librarians also lost things in the fire or they were stressed about their own livestock or their own friends or their or their properties. So I think as much as we in the library world want to be able to provide everything to everyone, we also have to be very conscientious and conscious of the fact that we are humans as well, and we can suffer. And while some of us might function better with that level of distraction, almost of like, all right, I have a job, I have a task that'll keep me focused and I won't think about if my barn is burning. At the same time, some of our librarians won't be like that and they will always be fretting, and they haven't been home all day, and they don't know if their spouse or their children were able to get out. 

So, I would caution the listeners here and librarians and library staff and boards across the state that just because we were all very giving people in the library world, we're also all humans. And, you know, I'm very thankful for my friends who came out for me who knew that they were not losing their properties, but I wouldn't always turn to the library to make sure that someone could be there to comfort me. 

Rather, to your point, libraries can act as resource centers and distribution centers without burdening the library staff.

Polly: I appreciate you bringing that up. That's something that preparation can do, right, on many sides. 

I think about that with time off. You mentioned the mentality that what's happening within the mind. If your house is at a loss, if your neighbor's house, your parents, your family, a lot of us live in the communities that we work in. And so really having your ducks in a row as far as administrative leave. Maybe your library offers administrative leave for people when they're evacuated or to be able to go and evacuate their things. So just checking on those policies and making sure staff are fully aware. So it's not a burden that they have to think about, what's going, am I still going to have a job? Am I still going to, all of those things. 

Also, I think the Healthy Family Workplace Act provides for the use of sick time due to a variety of crises, situations, so something else. And those are great to have those on hand and to make sure that supervisors, as well as staff, but definitely supervisors who the staff might go to, know about. And where your rubber band goes because your staff is going to be stressed. 

And so you can prepare as much as you can. You can do practice drills. Those help tabletop talks, going through your D plans, working with your Office of Emergency Management to really be clear on what you are probably possibly capable of doing and realities. I think those are important steps to keep in mind.

Jeremy: So, you know, so that's a great point, Polly, that, you know, we can also prepare learning from each other as Grand County Library District has gone through this and many other library districts, then and this summer as well, are going through wildfire scares. Having the libraries prepare and set the community up in a really good position to handle whatever aftermath of the fire is, might come down the pike. 

And you and I have talked about, even before COVID, we had already released fees and fines from our model. And then after the fire, we also lifted fees just in case someone had a book that burned in the fire they would not be charged for the loss of that book. And so, right, we had the foresight, I suppose, before COVID, getting rid of fines and fees, of unnecessary fines and fees. And that's something that, you know, of course, I advocate across the board. I see it as a really beautiful thing and it's opened up our libraries, and we have all the numbers and proof to show that it really worked. But it was also a really good way that something that the library can do at a very specific level to sell, to tell people, to tell victims of a wildfire, look, not only will you not be penalized for losing a book that that, you know, burned in the fire, but the library was already set up as a community service entity saying we care about our communities. We don't even have fines and fees to start with. And so there are other ways that libraries can prepare themselves and prepare their communities to really, I guess, respect them if and when someone is, like I was, in a complete haze and really unsure of where help was going to come from, what help I was supposed to turn to, what was a scam, what wasn't a scam. 

I knew that the library was there for me, not only because I was a trustee, but because the library had already demonstrated its value in the community.

[16:02]

Polly: Tell us a little bit more about this. So as time went on, the immediate emergency, that initial rush dissipates, do you recall, what are the things that you needed to do? Like when did you go back to work? Because your work was in the outdoors and the conservation. When do you transition back into normality, if that's the right word?

Jeremy: Yeah. So, you know, there were a couple of events in succession. So, I was in Silverthorne until Sunday evening. Sunday morning, so this is just four days after the fire, I received a photo from a neighbor of my house on fire. And the photo that we received was of his chimney and my house engulfed in flames. So, we both knew weeks before most of our neighbors knew if we had lost our homes. 

And this is a philosophical piece for me. There's a Talmudic line, “in simcha kehateret hasfakot”, which loosely translates to, there's no greater joy than the release of doubt. So while of course it was very emotional for me to see that photo, what was more emotional was that now I knew what had happened to my house,  right? 

I still talk to neighbors, and they relive it even to this day of, “We didn't know, we had to wait for the maps to come out and see different photos. And then there was one photo we saw where we saw our front door through the trees.” But they lived, some of them, it went a month before they knew if they had lost their house or not. So that was a really great moment for me to just know what had happened. Yes, it was tragic that I lost my house. It was my first house I ever owned. I lost all of my possessions, but it was still that knowledge. 

Following that, I actually went back to work that next week. At the Land Trust, I had to monitor properties, make sure that they upheld their end of the conservation easement. And I think I went out to a property to monitor it that Monday. This property was in the western part of the county, but right next to the Troublesome Creek. And this rancher actually knew what the campsite was. He knew where it was. He saw the fire start. So that was a very, it was a very powerful day to be on the property and talk with the rancher that day. But we were also distracted, right? Because we were doing work. I was doing my job. It's my passion that I've set my career around land conservation and management. 

But then over the next month or two, a lot of other pieces fell into place. So, I'm a member of Granby Rotary, and the Rotary Club lifted my fees for a year, as well as for other fire victims. I'm a member of other community groups and other businesses, and everyone kind of came together and did what they could. And it was little bits and pieces, but all of those little bits and pieces added up. And what they really added up to for me was the knowledge that the community was there for me. 

[18:25]

Jeremy: No one could have done everything. And even if they could have done everything, I didn't know what everything was, right?

 So, what the ongoing learning that I was doing was learning about, oh, well, now I know this is actually an important part of my life, or I know that this is a burden that I might not need in my life. Because after the fire, this element of my day-to-day life just wasn't relevant anymore. So I dropped some responsibilities. I added some responsibilities. And really over the next four years or so, until I was able to finish my rebuild and move back to my property, I kept evolving and moving and really figuring out what the puzzle pieces were that would make up the whole picture for me. 

It took me 4 1/2 years, four years or so to rebuild and move back to my property. And in that four years, I moved 10 times. I lived in five different towns as well as in, different parts of the county and experienced a lot of the county. It really gave me a better understanding of where I lived regardless. But it also was just an ongoing learning opportunity for me.

[19:38}

Polly: So let’s - I'm going to touch into some of the library long-term library pieces on that one in keeping in mind Grand County Library District some of the trustee positions are geographic designation. So, library just needs to keep that in mind, speak with their legal representation to consider if somebody is temporarily in a different location, if they are a geographic designation, just what the rules are around there. You also mentioned the board resolution about lost materials, destroyed materials, that there would be no fines or charges for that. I think you had to abstain from that vote, right, as a conflict of interest.

Jeremy: Yeah, I don't know if I had to, but I certainly chose to. You know, I'm fairly good at returning books on time, so I don't think I had any books sitting in my house. However, it did feel that since I was, I think I was the only victim on the board, it would just be more appropriate for me to abstain from that vote.

Polly: So just keeping those things in mind. And then thinking about the long term, you mentioned four or five years before you rebuilt and were back in your home.

Jeremy: I think it was four years and a week before I slept on my property again. And then I say that I finished the rebuild in maybe early 2025.

[20:55]

Polly: And I think one of the items I keep in mind with libraries is collectors of memories and stories and storytelling. There was an exhibit, museum exhibit that was built around people's stories and experience. I mean, that's part of the process for some people who are external, you know, communicators, processors kind of thing. And that was something, was that put together by the Chamber or the town of Grand Lake? Do you recall? I can look it up and check.

Jeremy: Yeah, I recall the town of Grand, it was a representative of the town that reached out to me, but I'm sure it was a coalition of different groups.

Polly: And things, and just to keep that story as part of the history and the experience of Grand County, the museum exhibit that then rotated through the county, and I think it went beyond as well, that libraries competed in that role. of collecting those stories or collecting people.

Jeremy: Right. Yeah, and what I contributed to that exhibit was a print of that photo I talked about, as well as... my flute, I play classical flute, and I play banjo, and I have the melted tube of my flute and the banjo, what's called the banjo ring, the metal ring that goes around the banjo. I found those after the fire and contributed them to the exhibit. I now have them back in my possession.

Polly: Oh, wow. So, as we wrap up and conclude, Jeremy, I really appreciate you sharing this story with us and thinking about it through these lenses of both resident community member of Grand County as well as library trustee. Are there any final thoughts, final notes, recommendations that you have for us?

[22:17]

Jeremy: Sure, yeah. You know, I've been asked this, I was asked this when the L.A. fires were going on a year or so ago. Someone posted on a community forum I'm a part of saying, “My friend just lost their house. They had a beautiful library, personal library. I want to help them and buy more books for them. What can I do?” And I immediately got on and said, “Don't”.

 I also have a personal library. I've developed it over many, many years. The fortunate piece was that the first place I lived in in Grand County was about 200 square feet. So, I wasn't able to have my entire library in my house. About half of it, mostly my conservation books, my Western books, my fiction, were at my office. And so after the fire, while I lost all of the books that were in my house, I lost about 50% of my total collection. 

A lot of people associate me with books, with reading. I run book clubs. I talk about books all the time. And so immediately following the fire, people were buying me books, either replacing books I'd lost or finding new ones for me and what that ended up being. And while I will say. I totally appreciate it. was very loving. I will never say anything bad about it. I had to schlep those books for four years through 10 different moves in different living situations. I didn't want to buy a storage container, although I probably should have. 

And so, when, since we're talking to librarians and library people, we all love books. Either maybe buy your friend a gift card to bookshop or to a local book, to a local bookstore or something, or just hold on to that want to give them a gift until they've moved back into their home or until they found another permanent location. And then you can buy them a new book to put on their shelf. Because for a lot of us, rebuilding was as traumatic as anything else, having to rebuild a house and rebuild your life. And you don't want to have to carry a lot of that extra weight physically and metaphorically around while you're doing that.

Polly: All right. Excellent words. Thank you very much, Jeremy. Appreciate you and you sharing the story. And look forward to seeing what your new house looks like and how it's gone. Have a great day.

Jeremy: You, too. Thank you so much.

[24:19]

Polly: Thank you for joining us today on Sunshine and Stories. Links are available in the show notes for local emergency alert systems, Watch Duty, and InciWeb, as well as the Colorado Cultural & Historic Resources Task Force to aid in mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery efforts.

[24:39] 

Kate B: That's our sunshine and stories for today, y'all.

Kieran: If you want to hear even more about what other Colorado folks are up to in their libraries, check out libraries learn.org. For all our past and future learning opportunities.

Suzi: This podcast is offered at no cost to listeners. Thanks to the time, effort and dedication of CSL library development consultants, as well as our state library colleagues and all our volunteer guests from across the field.

Kate C: CSL projects like this one are funded in part by the grants to states program, which is administered by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Polly:  The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the Colorado State Library Institute of Museum and Library Services or the US government.

All: Thanks for joining us. We'll catch you next time.

[Music]