Updated at 3:22 p.m. on July 16, 2025.
Michaela Smiley and her husband had been nervously watching the Turner Gulch Fire grow for days when they finally got a knock on the door at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities were going house to house in a remote section of far western Colorado, along Highway 141, with the same message: It was time to go.
Smiley buckled her 2-year-old daughter and 5-week-old son into their car seats and drove north to safety, while her husband stayed behind to try to prevent fire on their property, located across the canyon from the fire.
“The smoke was really bad, so for our little babies, we wanted to get them out and the dogs and cats out so that they aren't breathing everything in,” Smiley said. “Yeah, it's pretty bad.”
She and her family live along Highway 141 in Unaweep Canyon, which stretches from Whitewater to Gateway. Her home is in the evacuation zone for the Turner Gulch Fire, which has grown to nearly 14,000 acres — more than 20 square miles — as of Wednesday morning.
With the smoke filling the air since last Thursday, Smiley and her husband had readied themselves to leave, packed their bags and found temporary homes for their two cats, three dogs, two horses, 16 chickens and a half-dozen ducks.
As she got her young children ready to enter a temporary Red Cross evacuation center, dozens of miles away at a community center near Grand Junction, Smiley called the last few days a “roller coaster.”
“One minute you're like, it's fine. And the next minute, it's blowing up and you're panicking and then you're fine again, and then you're panicking,” she said.
Fire officials said the homes in the canyon, including Smiley’s, are all still standing, but she still feels a profound sense of loss.
“It's just really sad,” Smiley said. “It was such a beautiful canyon, and now driving past there, it's like piles of ash, so it's really sad.”
Officials will hold a community meeting with updates on the Turner Gulch and Wright Draw fires on Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Gateway.
South Rim Fire prompts evacuations in nearby Montrose County
Meanwhile, two counties southeast of the Turner Gulch Fire, Karen and Phillip Lee are also waiting for a chance to return to their home, which sits three-quarters of a mile from the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, where the South Rim Fire continues to burn at over 4,100 acres.
“We started getting texts from friends in the county on Thursday,” Karen Lee said. The family was over three hours away camping for the weekend. “So we immediately came home and our friends that live in Bostwick (Park) went ahead and went up to our house and started getting important things like passports, file cabinets, and then we were allowed to go up and got the rest of it,” she said.
The Lees, along with their dog Hachie, evacuated first to the Bostwick Park area, before that neighborhood was also evacuated as the fire grew, due to high winds.
“When we could see the flames from our friend's house, that's when it got really scary,” Karen Lee said.
The Lees own a log home with a metal roof. They have seen the property since evacuating and, so far as they know, their house is still intact. Their belongings are packed into their RV. Fire crews have put in breaks above their property to separate them from the South Rim burn.
“Currently, it's safe and it's in good shape,” Phillip Lee said, adding that fire crews were on their property Tuesday, securing it. “For me, it was a relief, that to them it seemed like it's going to be OK.”
More than a decade ago, the Lees lived in Alabama, and said the irony is not lost on them that they’ve traded one natural disaster area for another.
“I'd much rather deal with snow, and I guess fires, than I would (hurricanes) because we lost power with Katrina for three days, and five days with Ivan,” Karen Lee quipped.
While the Lee’s home stands, much of the South Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is scorched.
During a community meeting in Montrose Tuesday evening, park superintendent Stuart West estimated that around 85% of the south rim of the canyon had burned, including damage to heavy equipment and the park’s maintenance facility.
“The good news is the visitor center is intact,” West said, eliciting applause from the audience.
West added that the park had canceled reservations for camping for the year and that access to the inner canyon would be closed even after the fire was under control, due to concerns over unstable rock caused by the heat of the fire and vegetation loss.
The national park is among the draws for tourism to the Montrose economy, with estimates that more than $30 million is spent annually in communities near the park. The park sees between 300,000 to 400,000 visitors per year, according to national park figures.
Lori Syme lives five miles from the park and owns a short-term rental that she expects will see a decline in visitors due to the fire.
“People have been wanting to cancel already because of the fire, so I'm impacted already by that. And July is my biggest month for my income,” Syme, who attended Thursday’s meeting in Montrose with her dog, Rodgy.
During the meeting, officials said that protecting homes and critical infrastructure remained the priority, with weather conditions suggesting a slightly more favorable outlook for firefighters heading into Friday, though there is also a risk of increased lightning.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story misstated the county where evacuations are.
