The drone whirs to life on a driveway in the Spanish Hills neighborhood of Boulder County. Its four spinning motors lift it to nearly 200 feet above the ground. Below, the cul-de-sac comes into view, revealing the stone chimneys and blackened foundations that dot the hillside-what remains of many of the houses in this neighborhood after flames swept through on Dec. 30 and into the morning of Dec. 31 during what would become known as the Marshall Fire.
Brad Wham trudges through the snow to join about a dozen other researchers who have gathered to watch the flight this morning. They're wearing hard hats and neon safety vests. As an engineer at CU Boulder, Wham studies how water pipelines and other "lifelines" can maintain their functionality during natural hazards, such as earthquakes and wildfires. He also lives in Louisville, Colorado, and had to evacuate his own home on that same day.
"I've deployed to Japan and New Zealand to study disasters very shortly after they occurred," said Wham, an assistant research professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering (CEAE). "It has been a different experience to have them happen in my hometown."
The Marshall Fire, which spread throughout much of Boulder County including the towns of Superior and Louisville, became the most destructive fire in Colorado's history. More than 1,000 homes were lost, and approximately 6,000 acres burned. One person remains missing while another was confirmed dead.
In coordination with local officials, Wham and his colleagues from Oregon State and Purdue universities have been surveying the damage since first-responders extinguished the flames. The effort is part an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) called Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER), which deploys researchers to disaster sites around the world. The team hopes to better understand the disaster from a uniquely engineering perspective: Why did some houses burn, for example, while neighboring homes survived? How did critical services like water, gas and electricity hold up during one of the worst disasters in Boulder County's history?
Time is of the essence. Soon, bulldozers and excavators will crawl through the impacted areas to begin the slow process of rebuilding-and much of that information will be gone forever.
"I think that what we're doing here is going to be beneficial in the future, especially with other communities that are going to have fires," said Jessica Ramos, a senior at CU Boulder who's working on Wham's research team.
The Marshall Fire swept through this cul-de-sac in the Spanish Hills neighborhood. (Credit: Casey Cass/CU Boulder)
