Residents of the Lake Shore community in Boulder County have had their struggles in recent years.

The neighborhood sits just north of the Gross Reservoir, located in the mountains southwest of Boulder. It’s a tiny community with few access roads and is a 30-minute drive from Boulder, and residents have felt the impacts of the ongoing Gross Reservoir expansion project, including closures of the two main roads they use to get in and out of the area.

The residents say construction trucks have gotten stuck trying to navigate the sharp curves of Flagstaff Road, temporarily blocking residents from getting to Boulder. In March of this year, when a massive rockslide closed Gross Dam Road, it took three months for the road to be reopened. And in June, Flagstaff Road was closed during an hours-long standoff between an armed suspect and Boulder police that ended with the suspect taking his own life.

The road closures had residents in the area nervous even before this year’s fire season began.

“I have lived here 32 years and have only had to evacuate once, but have been on pre-evacuation notice multiple times. If there were to be a fire between us and Boulder which blocks Flagstaff Road, there are literally hundreds of people up here stranded,” resident Bev Kurtz wrote in an email earlier this year.

But these challenges may have had a silver lining: They prompted the community to work with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office create an innovative system for quickly sharing information with each other during emergencies and road closures. So when a fire broke out last week on Lakeshore Drive that forced Kurtz and others to evacuate, people who lived in the area were able to quickly get a hold of each other and help others stay safe.

Kurtz said the fire was the first test of the new system, and she felt it was a major success.

The residents had spoken with Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson and Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Vinnie Montez back in June to ask for better communication around emergencies, road closures and other issues affecting people who live in the Flagstaff Mountain area.

They devised a plan where Montez would reach out to two neighborhood liaisons — Kurtz and her neighbor, Anna McDermott — and the two of them would use a Telegram group they had set up to quickly get the information out to the rest of the community. Telegram is a cloud-based instant messaging and audio calling app.

“The fire happened very quickly and, unlike other instances where we had hours or even days of pre-evacuation notices, we literally had minutes to get out of our homes,” she wrote. “The sheriff’s department did an incredible job with communicating with us. It was a huge improvement over what has happened in the past.”

Montez confirmed the sheriff’s office had met with the residents and made it a goal to increase communication with them. The system they created proved to be a viable solution for such a tight-knit community.

“From our meeting with them, they have a pretty close network up there. They have their own ways of communicating, and just as long as somebody does have that information,” they can reach out to others, Montez said.

The fire started around 2:30 p.m. on July 31 close to a home on Lakeshore Drive. It burned down a house and came close to another, reaching seven acres before crews announced on Friday they had fully contained it. Sheriff Johnson described the blaze as “human-caused” but most likely accidental.

On that day, Kurtz was coming home from a camping trip and said she saw “a plume of black smoke” rising up near where she lived. She and McDermott reached out to people quickly as Everbridge began sending out evacuation notifications. McDermott said they broke windows to get pets out of their homes.

Kurtz said she and McDermott were kept informed of what was happening and that they were able to communicate well with everyone involved.

“I personally have immense praise for the department personnel who handled everything efficiently and safely, all while keeping us informed as to what was happening,” she said, adding that Montez in particular went “above and beyond.”

Montez said he felt fortunate that he had the time and was able to help the community out on that day.

“This is what we do with (the sheriff’s office). We just try to meet people where they’re at. And if we can do that, and we have time to do it, we will do it,” he said.

Kurtz, McDermott and their neighbors evacuated first to the North Shore parking lot by the reservoir, and then to Walker Ranch. They moved to several different locations because authorities kept telling them they needed to move further away from the fire area.

Finally, they came to the Base Mar shopping center in south Boulder and waited there for hours. The next morning, evacuation orders were lifted and they were allowed to return home.

Although one neighbor tragically lost their home, Kurtz said, the community feels grateful that more homes weren’t damaged.

“We were extremely lucky,” she said.

Originally Published: August 8, 2024 at 10:22 a.m.