LOUISVILLE, Colo. — Thursday will mark one week since the Marshall Fire tore through Boulder County, torching nearly 1,000 homes and buildings in Louisville and Superior. Some of the homes left standing are still waiting for services like heating and electricity to be restored.
"He doesn't have heat yet," Matt Lowrie said while pointing to his next door neighbor's home. "The fire came along the side of his house and burned out his electrical panel, so when they [Xcel Energy] came to turn on heat in the neighborhood, they weren't able to turn on his heat because they needed the electrical admission to power on the furnace."
Lowrie lives in a cul-de-sac in Louisville. He explained he and his wife were "lending" some of their electricity to help the neighbor run space heaters.
"...to at least keep the pipes from from freezing and breaking inside," Lowrie said. "So, he's running electrical cords to our house. We've had electricity and gas and heat."
On Wednesday evening, a crew from Xcel Energy worked to assess the situation at the home next to the Lowrie family. A crew member explained they wouldn't be able to restore the natural gas service until the electrical panel was repaired on the home.
Lowrie said despite the circumstances, his neighbor was grateful for the chance to run the space heaters.
"He's going to stay here... to keep an eye on the house while it gets cold and make sure it's staying warm enough," Lowrie said.
Just behind Lowrie's home, hundreds of houses were burned in the Marshall Fire, with charred remnants lying mere feet from his property.
"The amount of devastation, I could have never imagined," he said. "The firefighters did a fantastic job, we're lucky because they were in our backyard fighting the fire and keeping it from burning down our homes."
