BOULDER COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — Days after the costliest fire in state history, the Wyss family shared intimate details of how they lost their home and the last images they saw before it was gone.
“Everything’s gone,” Wendy Wyss said.
At first, it was the understanding that her home, in the Spanish Hills neighborhood, was very close to fires that raged on Thursday night.
“The blue sky went away,” Wyss said. “Maybe it didn’t burn our house.”
A day later it became a reality that her home was gone.
“I didn’t believe it,” Wyss said.
Dramatic security camera video captured flames burning through her yard. Wyss said it looked like a time-lapse.
Wyss tried anything to come to terms with what happened to her family. “Stuff is replaceable, we’re going to be ok,” she said.
But then she remembered something to pile on top of what she was already enduring.
“I didn’t put on my wedding ring and that’s like one of my great regrets now,” Wyss said.
Wyss and her husband are staying in a hotel while their grown children stay with friends.
With nothing to look back on except the last images of her home as it burned away, the camera itself was lost in the fire.
“This is going to be a full-time job,” Wyss said. Wyss plans to start the insurance process and apply for aid. “I don’t know, I don’t know how to navigate this, I don’t know what’s next,” Wyss said.
This next step is another harsh realization for Wyss and her family.
“How much can we take,” Wyss asked, “maybe, it’s too much at once.”