On Thursday, 77 firefighters who came in from Alaska to fight the Grizzly Creek Fire near Glenwood Springs returned home. But they not get a very long break before they are deployed again. Norm McDonald, Incident Commander of the Alaska Incident Management Team, thanked the community for their support in a message posted on Facebook. “Your tremendous support, cooperation and patience during the past two weeks has been inspiring,” McDonald wrote. “We can only hope that Mother Nature decides to give Coloradoans a break; you folks certainly deserve one after what you have endured this summer.”
“While we are partial to our home state, we have to admit that northwest Colorado is a special place,” McDonald wrote. “We can only hope the landscape heals quickly and Coloradoans can get back to enjoying the beauty that is the Rocky Mountains.”
“Everybody is going to get at least two days off,” McDonald said Thursday.