A new documentary airing on local public television tonight tells the story of seven mountain residents who defied evacuation orders and battled last year’s Four Mile Canyon Fire near Boulder, ultimately helping save scores of homes from the state’s most destructive wildfire. “Above the Ashes” is the first major video documentary about the Four Mile Canyon Fire, which sparked on Labor Day last year and burned 169 homes.
The film is produced by University of Colorado at Denver digital design professor Michelle Carpenter, who has lived in the Sunshine Canyon area west of Boulder for fifteen years.
"Our house would have surely burned to the ground the first day if the four men, Chris, Sean, Charles and Matt had not put our shed," Carpenter tells KUNC.
She says most firefighters had responded to the adjacent Four Mile Canyon so in her neighborhood, it was up to the men who stayed behind.
"These men were putting out the fires with shovels, with dirt, with five gallon buckets of water, they were using hot tubs, they were using pasta pots, they were doing bucket brigade to put out these fires using just regular tools that we have," Carpenter says.
Carpenter hopes her film will help educate westerners about the risks of living in fire-prone areas, and what they can do to better protect their homes and property.
"Above the Ashes" airs tonight at 9:30 on Colorado Public Television. Watch a video trailer below:
http://vimeo.com/32000851
