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Ongoing coverage of the Lake Christine Fire from Aspen Public Radio News

Eagle County’s MIRA Bus Helps Fire Evacuees Restart

The Lake Christine Fire forced almost 2,000 mid-valley residents to flee their homes on the Fourth of July. Firefighters battled the flames, and, after several days, evacuees returned to houses littered with ash.

Their curtains reeked of smoke, and their refrigerators were full of spoiled food. There’s an effort, led by Eagle County, to help evacuees get what they need to restart their lives.

Melina Valcesia drove around the El Jebel Mobile Home Park with her car packed full of bottled water and detergent.

She stopped and rolled down her window to see if a man walking down the street wanted any of it.

“Excuse me?” she said. “Are you cleaning your house? Do you need cleaning supplies?”

He didn’t, but thanked her for her offer. Cleaning after a wildfire might just mean throwing away. Eagle County placed large dumpsters on a few street corners and people had dragged mattresses and couches out to them, all ruined by smoke.

Valcesia works for Our Community Foundation in Eagle and she came to El Jebel to work with the county’s MIRA bus -- the Mobile Intercultural Resource Alliance -- parked in El Jebel. Anyone affected by fire can swing by for food, diapers, bottled water, etc. Valcesia said some people have learned they’re eligible for Medicaid and now have health insurance.  

Most visitors are women, most Latina, and they come, primarily, for the grocery cards to City Market and Whole Foods, donated by the Aspen Community Foundation.

The El Jebel Mobile Home Park is big, so Valcesia drives to its outer stretches to tell people about the available resources.

 

Mind Springs Health, a mental health care provider, also has staff going door-to-door in the mobile home park visiting with people and handing out information on trauma.

Most of Valcescia’s conversations quickly turn to the fire.  

On the Fourth of July, Jennifer Ayala was in Willits. She saw the fire coming down the ridge towards her family’s house in El Jebel.

The police weren’t allowing cars into the mobile home park, so she ran. Her father and little brother were home. But she couldn’t reach them. Her cell phone wasn’t working and she was assuming the worst.  

“[I thought] I was losing my father and my brother and that I was never going to see them again,” Ayala said.  

They were waiting for her safely away from the fire, but when her dad saw her, Ayala said, he started running up to the house to get more items.

“We weren’t prepared,” Ayala said. “We had nothing.”

Valcesia hears painful stories like Ayala’s, but also gets to visit with people amazed with what they still have. Mark Diekmann was home when Valcesia knocked, cleaning his carpets. He was still marvelling at how the firefighters stopped the blaze right outside.

“My house, it’s not blistered. It’s not burned. It’s just unbelievable,” Diekmann said.  

He described the view from his back window as something out of World War I. The trees were black; the hillside above him is barren and lifeless. Diekmann has emphysema, and he’s been hooked up to his oxygen tank pretty much nonstop ever since getting home. Valcesia told him about the bus down the hill, but he didn’t seem too interested in talking about his health.

He wanted to tell Valcesia the fire has made him a better person. He abandoned his house quickly on the Fourth of July. He only had time to grab a few documents and photos, certainly not enough time to take his American flag down from outside.

A few days after evacuating, he came home to get some medication. A fire truck was parked in his driveway. The firemen still working tirelessly.

“They had like folded my flag and put it on my table. They had like watered my pots out there. Because I thought everything was gone. From down there looking up here? It looked like everything was gone,” Diekmann said.

Melina Valcesia might start by checking in with the evacuees and offering people bottled water and cleaning supplies, but pretty quickly, she’s listening intently as people process out loud all that’s happened to them in the past two weeks.  

 

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