‘All hell broke loose’ in Basalt and El Jebel Wednesday night

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Chris Beiser of the Basalt Public Works Department works to unclog a drain in knee-deep water at the Willits pedestrian underpass of Highway 82 on Thursday morning, while colleague Ryan Wesseling mans a sump pump. The water overwhelmed the drain in Wednesday night’s deluge.

Basalt first responders probably have the James Taylor lyric, “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain,” stuck in their heads after Wednesday.

A wildfire flared up high on a ridge east of Basalt late in the afternoon and was doused by local and federal firefighters. Then the deluge and lightning hit in the night. Another wildfire was sparked on the same ridge as the first. Firefighters felt comfortable letting Mother Nature take care of that one given the rate of rainfall.

The rain created problems of its own. It fell so rapidly that the pedestrian underpass of Highway 82 at Willits was filled to about the 5-foot level, the Whole Foods parking garage got swamped, an intersection on East Valley Road was closed due to pooling water, a residence in Elk Run was inundated with flowing water, a boulder toppled onto the roadway near Cedar Drive and Sopris Drive, and a mudslide trapped a vehicle on West Sopris Creek Road.

Meteorologist Cory Gates of micro-forecasting service Aspen Weather, who is also a resident of Basalt Mountain, put it best in his summary on Thursday. “All hell broke loose,” he wrote.

A lightning strike on Tuesday night likely sparked a fire that flared up in the Wednesday afternoon heat on the ridge west and south of where the Arbaney Kittle Trail tops out. Firefighters from Roaring Fork Fire Rescue and the Upper Colorado River Fire Management Unit hiked to the site and snuffed out the fire Wednesday.

Erin Walter, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, said rain fell at a rate of one inch per hour between 10:08 p.m. and 10:48 p.m. in the Basalt and El Jebel area. The agency issued a flash flood warning for the Lake Christine Fire burn scar at 10:14 p.m.

Walter said radar estimates placed rainfall totals at 0.5 to 0.75 inches over the Lake Christine burn scar. In addition, there were up 30 to 60 lightning strikes detected over the scar, she said. Gates wrote that a sensor on Crown Mountain recorded 1.47 inches of rain in 2½ hours.

The first fire of the day was unrelated to the storm. Smoke was reported at about 4:30 p.m. by a hiker on the Arbaney Kittle Trail, which starts in Holland Hills. A team of four firefighters from Roaring Fork Fire Rescue split into two groups, one team ascending the traditional trail and another on an alternative route, said Richard Cornelius, deputy chief of operations.

The fire was hard to pinpoint because of the vast terrain, he said. It was located on the ridge between the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan drainages, then about 400 yards to the west and 200 yards downslope to the south of the ridgeline, according to notes from a team member. Firefighters found a single tree ignited in an area covered with pinyon and juniper, along with “a 10-by-20-foot section of hot duff,” said the firefighter team’s notes, shared by Cornelius.

Another nine firefighters from the Upper Colorado River Interagency Fire Management Unit responded because it was unknown how severe of a threat the fire posed when it was reported.

Roaring Fork Fire Rescue firefighters assist a homeowner in Basalt deal with flood waters Wednesday night. They dug a trench to prevent more water from entering the house and pumped water out.

“The concern would be the spread potentially due to dry fuels,” Cornelius said. It is believed to have been started by a lightning strike on Tuesday. The fire flared up in the Wednesday afternoon heat.

Fortunately, Cornelius said, there was little wind to push the fire. It was extinguished and the last firefighters cleared the area at 9:18 p.m., which, coincidentally was shortly before the rains came and created “multiple issues” around Basalt, Cornelius said.

At 10:47 p.m., emergency dispatchers received a call about water entering a residence at 1104 Devon Court.

“They basically had 2 feet of water coming into the house,” Cornelius said.

The force of the water flowing into a window well broke the glass and the water flooded the house. Firefighters and members of the Basalt Public Works Department responded to the scene.

“They pumped water out of the house and dug a trench to divert the water,” Cornelius said.

Public works also placed sandbags to help with diversion. The last firefighters cleared the area at 12:10 a.m. Thursday.

Cornelius said a firefighter living at the West Sopris Creek station informed him about the flooding on West Sopris Creek Road and the mudslide. The firefighter successfully pulled out a vehicle stuck in the slide, so no further response was necessary. Pitkin County Road and Bridge was notified about the slide.

In Basalt, public works and Basalt police officers responded to multiple other water-related problems. Chris Beiser, town arborist, was returning to his residence in Willits Town Center when he learned of water flooding the pedestrian underpass between Four Dogs Fine Wine and Spirits and the RFTA bus stop. A stormwater drain on the south side of the underpass was overwhelmed by the water. He was amazed to find a woman wading through water above her knees after exiting a bus so she could get to her car and go home.

Public works employees were at the scene after daybreak on Thursday using sump pumps to transfer the water to a different nearby drain. They also shoveled the sludge left behind. The water and debris mark on the concrete underpass showed it reached about 5 feet in height.

Greg James, a parks and streets maintenance technician, said he and police officers responded to several problems areas throughout the night and into Thursday morning. In most cases, the rapidly falling rain overwhelmed culverts and storm drains.

Public Works Director Boyd Bierbaum said he wouldn’t be surprised if the rainfall was a 100-year event.

“I don’t know that any drain can handle that,” he said.

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