BOULDER COUNTY, Colorado—Healthcare staff at a Boulder County Hospital are being hailed as heroes following the devastating Marshall Fire that tore through the area.
Centura Hospital says flames came within four feet of highly flammable oxygen tanks as the Marshall Fire ripped through the area. A spokesman says staff from Avista Adventist Hospital fought back flames with hoses, avoided what could have been a “catastrophic” explosion.
A video recorded from the hospital’s roof Thursday shows the fire and its billowing clouds of smoke approaching the north side of the hospital, “so to return hours later and find no significant damage is truly a miracle,” Isaac Sendros, chief executive officer for Avista Adventist Hospital, said in a statement.
Using hoses, hospital employees held back flames that came within four feet of a highly flammable liquid oxygen tank on the property, according to a news release from parent company Centura Health.
The hospital moved patients away from the fast-moving fire to the other side of the building, including emergency patients, intensive care unit patients and babies and two patients on ventilators. All were ultimately evacuated.
The hospital released videos and photos showing soot-covered areas of the hospital: patient rooms, the ambulance bay, the emergency room nursing station. Three levels of air filters, all coated with soot, were pulled from the building’s air intake system.
The CEO for the hospital released this statement Friday afternoon:
“The high winds were driving the fire straight toward our hospital on the north side, so to return hours later and find no significant damage is truly a miracle,” said Isaac Sendros, Chief Executive Officer for Avista Adventist Hospital. “We are eternally grateful and thankful to the first responders who responded with urgency and have tirelessly worked since the fire first erupted in our community. Avista will be a light in the darkness as we support our friends, neighbors, and community in this recovery.”
Smoke damage to the hospital will keep it closed for the foreseeable future.
The Colorado National Guard is currently assisting the hospital to make sure the facility is secure as they continue to assess damage and re-build.
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“Their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work” (1 Corinthians 3:13).
