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PUEBLO, Colorado (KOAA) — Cows, goats, dogs and poultry fill the Cedar Ranch Homestead. When the Aspen Acres Fire threatened that life, one woman made a call, and her neighbors answered.
Jen Way watched flames come over the ridge and quickly realized she had a problem.
“My truck’s down. Our Ford over there, unfortunately, the engine needs replaced. I said, ‘I need a truck because that fire’s coming for me and I don’t have any way to get these cows out,'” said Way.
She called her neighbors, Jennifer and Tyler Frenia, who drove more than an hour, arriving not with one truck, but with four vehicles and trailers.
Together, they loaded bulls and goats into trailers and dogs into trucks.
“Once we got them here in the corner, just keep the panel behind them and just kind of wait them out, you know, eventually they came towards the hay and towards the feed,” said Jennifer Frenia.
Tyler Frenia said staying calm was the key.
“What I can control is how effectively I can get everything out of here by being calm,” said Tyler Frenia.
For Way, knowing every animal would make it out was overwhelming.
“To know that not a single life on my property was going to have to stay behind. There aren’t words,” said Way. “They drove towards the apocalypse to just save my animals,” she said.
For the Frenias, the effort was simply the right thing to do.
“It costs you absolutely nothing to be kind, zero at all,” said Tyler Frenia.
It’s been more than a week since residents returned to Colorado City following the Aspen Acres Fire, but the experience forged a bond that goes beyond neighborly kindness.
“It’s strange because, like, we were friends before all this, but you know, hanging out was rare and few. Now, like this brought us together, and this is like my best friend now. It’s crazy. Just like a little bit of positive came out of all this. We really got to know each other,” said Jennifer Frenia.
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