(BLACK FOREST, Colo.) — One woman continues to rebuild her generational home a decade after the Black Forest Fire burned her whole life to the ground on June 11, 2013.
Ginny Vinson has been counting her blessings since the fire destroyed 500 homes and claimed two lives leaving millions of dollars in damages ten years ago.
“Everything else was lost… My son and I got out of here with the clothes on our backs and the animals,” Vinson reflected. “A lifetime of memories. A lifetime of collecting things. I had jewelry, furniture, clothes, everything. Artwork. It was all gone.”
Vinson was away helping others evacuate not knowing the fire would quickly engulf her own home she’s lived in since 1986– property she purchased when she was a young woman right out of college.
“Actually had a friend,” stated Vinson. “He heard that the fire was getting close to my house… a deputy wouldn’t let him come up here, and he literally got out of his truck and started running up the road to get to me [and] get stuff out of here, which was a blessing.”
It was enough time to grab her seven horses, two bulls, two steers, a cow and its calf. Vinson would have to leave behind 13 sheep and remembers the wall of flames surrounding her animals.
“I shoved the sheep down the driveway and thought, ‘I’ll never see you again,’ because I couldn’t get them loaded up,” said Vinson, remembering the chaos as one-hundred-foot trees lit up around her house. “It was so fast, and I never thought it was going to get this far. It was within an hour… it was here.”
Escaping the fire would be easier compared to the months that followed.
“Being homeless was the hardest part. My son and I had no place to go so we stayed with friends for 18 months… we were underinsured and right in the middle of a divorce. My ex-husband wouldn’t sign any of the insurance checks,” stated Vinson.
There would be many homeowners in Black Forest who were underinsured like Vinson or not insured at all struggling financially, especially when there was no additional help from the government, according to Vinson.
“It wasn’t considered a natural disaster. So, FEMA was not available to anybody since it was manmade out of somebody’s carelessness. [The government] didn’t even help us and a lot of people didn’t have insurance and they lost everything, too,” said Vinson.
Short finances made bringing normalcy back into life harder for those impacted.
“It was devastating and very life-altering. Your life just changed in an instant and there’s no way to go back to it and you just start over,” Vinson stated.
The community, however, would step up for one another– strangers becoming friends. Vinson remembers the donations and kind acts of service that helped her get through traumatic experiences.
Eventually, Vinson would build a new home from the ground up. Now, she continues to restore all that was lost, creating new memories.
