GREELEY, Colo. (KDVR) — As an engine boss for Greeley Fire, Shawn Eggleston has one mission.

“No. 1 job: get those guys home safe to their families,” Eggleston said.

On Tuesday, he was able to fulfill that goal, and he and his two fellow firefighters got back to Station 1 in Greeley. They battled the Pine Gulch Fire north of Grand Junction for two weeks, with two travel days on both ends.

“I’ve never seen this fire behavior in Colorado,” Eggleston said. “It was marching down the mountain — against topography, against wind.”

On the same day, Sean Wendt got to sit down at a restaurant in Denver for the first time in weeks, also returning from Pine Gulch. 

“Never seen a fire move like that before and I’ve been doing this for 23 years,” Wendt said. “Moving fast. It was large, it was violent, it was incredible.”

Back in Greeley, Eggleston and his crew spray down a brown Yeti cooler, which revealed its white base under a layer of dust.

“Day in and day out, setting up your tent, eating the dust,” Eggleston said. “Sleeping in the dust. I’ve never seen it that dry.”

On top of the 100-degree days and dry conditions, firefighters with decades worth of experience still had to react in different ways, as procedures changed to account for the pandemic.

“Meals were delivered differently,” Eggleston said. “We had cold meals pretty much the whole time.”

With the Pine Gulch Fire closing in on the largest wildfire in Colorado history, crews have it 47% contained as of Tuesday night, as hundreds return to their families after weeks of incremental progress.

“Cool to see all of us come together. Doesn’t matter who we are, where we are from,” Eggleston said. “That’s what we expect out of firefighters. We get the job done no matter what the circumstances, and that’s what I saw up there.”