As news of the fire occurring at the Palisade Peach Festival on Aug. 16 spreads, many in the valley have concerns over the safety and schedule of the festival through the following days. The Palisade Peach Festival will continue throughout the night until 10 p.m. and then tomorrow from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in downtown Palisade.
Colorado Mesa University Alumnus Jessica Niehaus recalled the fire starting from a misfired firework, “My friend Will and I were enjoying the fireworks, just as everyone else was. I think it was the best fireworks display I think I’ve seen in a really long time- like, Disney-level fireworks. There was a firework that went up, but didn’t go off. We saw it fall down, and in my head, and I’m sure in a lot of peoples’ heads, we were all thinking ‘uh, uh-oh.’ But the firework show kept going and you forgot about the missed one and it fell into the bushes somewhere.”
After that, the fireworks stopped, the music cut out, and what everyone saw was an entire tree on fire. “My friend Will and I left around that point, but a lot of people stayed and kept watching the fireworks. But in the next five minutes it took for us to walk from our chairs to the shuttles, half the hill was already on fire, and a lot of people were trailing behind us. By the time we got to the shuttles the whole hill was ablaze,” Niehaus said.
“The whole fire had to have happened in maybe ten to fifteen minutes. It was still a really good time; it was just a crazy, amazing instance of mother nature to witness,” Niehaus said.
According to Palisade Peach Festival volunteer Rebecca Watters, who was working the event the night of the incident, “Once the fire started, everyone just started scrambling. Everyone was really good with one another, there was no shoving or anything like that.”
While there has been relief from the fire ban that has plagued the valley for many years, organizers of the festival were still careful for the possibility of a fire occurring. “The fire crew was on the spot. In fact, they had a truck that was already back there ready to go, that was nice. And then the other trucks were quick to get on top of the mountain. Damage was minimal- you can see even today that the fire did not go above the top of the hill, even the big tree survived, right by the river,” Watters said. “And no one was injured.”
Many individuals were chatting about the concern of air quality at the festival after such a fire occured, but there were no incidents of harsh smoke or breathing problems due to air quality at the festival on Aug. 17. “The peach festival will continue as planned. There was no hiccup at all today, everything went as planned,” Watters said.
“If I had to guess, there were probably a couple thousand people in attendance yesterday,” Watters said. Despite news of the fire spreading and the rising concern from Grand Valley citizens, attendance was even greater on Aug. 17.
“It did not disrupt the community at all,” Watters said. “Everyone feels bad. Accidents happen, but it’s so sad that this is the first year that fire bans have been lifted and the first year in many that the Peach Festival has seen fireworks…,” Watters said. “I don’t feel like anyone is to blame.”
Today Matt Soper, CMU alumnus and former student Trustee, and Don Valdez, both members of the Colorado House of Representatives, “agreed to have state resources assist in ensuring the fire is fully contained and no longer a public threat,” according to a Facebook post made from Soper’s account around 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 17.
