DENVER – Authorities on Tuesday identified the two people who died trying to flee the most damaging wildfire in state history as firefighters appeared to be closer to containing the still-burning blaze.
The victims were identified as Marc Allen Herklotz, 52, and his wife, 50-year-old Robin Lauran Herklotz. They died one week ago, the same day the Black Forest Fire broke out. The fire destroyed 502 homes and charred more than 22 square miles. It was 85 percent contained Tuesday.
Bob Schmidt, who lived in one of the five other houses on Jicarilla Drive near the Herklotzes, said the couple raced back to their home Tuesday afternoon and began packing as the fire headed toward them but seemed to be in no hurry.
“They were sitting on their porch, watching TV,” said Schmidt, adding his wife urged them to flee immediately as smoke rolled in at 4:35 p.m. June 11. “They said they’d leave when they needed to.”
Schmidt said he had received a call telling him to leave immediately, but the Herklotzes said they did not get such a call. Their homes lay just outside the mandatory evacuation boundary announced on Twitter by El Paso County at 3:34 p.m. that day. The zone was expanded to include Jicarilla Drive at 5:36 p.m.
El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said that someone had spoken to the couple on the phone at about 5 p.m. and heard a popping sound – most likely the fire racing through the trees that permeated the thickly wooded neighborhood. The couples’ bodies were found two days later in their garage, car doors open. They apparently died while trying to evacuate.
The two worked at Air Force Space Command, which operates military satellites, and were based at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, the Air Force said in a statement.
The couple lived in a 3-bedroom house assessed at $281,000, according to property records. Schmidt said the Herklotzes were fixtures in the area, walking their dog every night and coming by to get eggs laid by the chickens Schmidt and his wife keep. A few weeks ago, he said, they worked filling in potholes on the narrow dirt cul de sac where they all lived.
“They loved the forest,” Schmidt said of the couple.
Investigators continued searching Tuesday for clues to what started the wildfire. Authorities don’t believe natural causes are to blame but haven’t elaborated on a possible cause.
Fire investigators were stepping up efforts Tuesday to identify how the blaze started. They concentrated on a 40-foot-by-40-foot area, but haven’t said whether they think the fire was started accidentally or on purpose.
Maketa said Tuesday that weather posed a further risk to evacuees.
Predicted rainstorms Tuesday afternoon posed the possibility of flash floods along with smoldering fires, a common occurrence in fire-scarred forests where brush and trees that usually absorb rainfall have been reduced to ash.
Maketa said that additional home loss is not anticipated, though the count would likely rise.
“What you’re seeing today is not new damage,” the sheriff said.
