It was just after 11:00 this morning when TW mention that the smell of smoke was coming from the front of the store. I made my way to the front entrance and this is what I saw - smoke from a grass fire that was burning roughly a quarter-mile from the showroom.
As I was looking across the parking lot towards the grass fire, a large plume of smoke suddenly filled the sky. "This can't be good" was the first thought that popped into my head.
Ten minutes later the smoke began to fill the sky. The wind was gusting somewhere between 60 to 80 mph, blowing debris all over the parking lot. The store reverberated with the sounds of objects hitting or tumbling over the roof.
The wind seemed to be pushing the fire northwest, away from the showroom, which momentarily lead me to believe we would not be in any danger.
That opinion changed within seconds - the wind was not driving the fire to the northwest - it was a swirling wind, and it was pushing the fire in every direction. That's when the decision was made to get out of there.
We evacuated as fast as we could, joining what had to be the entire population of the town of Superior as well as the entire population of the city of Louisville in a frantic caravan east to safety. It took almost thirty minutes just to get from the parking lot to the intersection of West Dillon and Wadsworth.
The fire has grown into the most destructive in the history of the state of Colorado. I have no idea if the store is still intact or if it's been burned to the ground, but from all the reports I'm seeing on the internet and television, there is little hope.
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