PARK COUNTY — Even though evacuations near the Thorpe fire were lifted Monday, residents close to that evacuation zone aren't taking any chances.
"It has been my life dream to live in the high country," Park County resident Amy Mitchell said.
For the last four years, Mitchell has been living her dream.
"Coming from the city, I just value our solitude," she said.
Since 2016, she and her husband have called their ranch in rural park county their piece of heaven on earth.
"I wanted a view of a fourteener," Mitchell said. "And Pike's Peak is such a majestic mountain."
But that view has been missing lately, due to a thick layer of smoke from distant wildfire. And sunday, more of her dream became threatened.
"We saw the smoke yesterday and packed our camper," she said.
The Thorpe fire was knocking on her back door. But this wasn't her first rodeo.
"Since Waldo Canyon, we have things pretty well together, I know where all my important things are," she said.
Her former home in Colorado Springs barely survived the Waldo Canyon Fire.
"It was hard to belive the pictures we were seeing that eveing when the fire went through," she said.
Moving out to the rural mountains, she knew wildfires would be a possibility.
"We are at the mercy of mother nature living here," Mitchell said.
But the thought of losing her piece of heaven on earth is still hard to bear.
"It would break my heart to see the forest burn... the beauty... it would be devastating," she said.
