Stars and Bars RestorationColorado 165 and 78 reopened this past week for the first time in over a month, and with them, a lot of Custer and Pueblo County families are finally able to drive back up toward home and see, with their own eyes, what the Aspen Acres fire left behind. Containment is holding around 72%, evacuation orders in the immediate area have been lifted, and the fire itself has largely settled into mop-up and suppression repair work after burning close to 102,000 acres across Pueblo and Custer counties since it broke out in late June.
If your house is still standing, that's genuinely good news — most homes in the fire's footprint were. But "still standing" and "safe to move back into" aren't the same thing, and we've seen plenty of families make the trip home, breathe a sigh of relief that the walls are intact, and skip the less obvious checks that matter just as much. Here's what we'd walk through with you if we were standing in your driveway right now.
Don't Trust Your Nose Alone
Smoke odor is the most obvious sign something's wrong, but it's a bad measuring stick on its own. Sometimes a house that smells fine on move-in day develops a stronger smoke smell weeks later once the HVAC system runs and recirculates trapped particles through the ductwork. Other times a house reeks the first day and airs out mostly fine within a week once windows have been open. Smell tells you something happened; it doesn't tell you how bad it is or where.
What actually tells you the extent of it:
- Soot and ash residue on windowsills, in closets, and inside cabinets — even sealed ones. Fine particulate finds its way through door seals and cabinet gaps more than people expect.
- HVAC system contamination. If your furnace or AC ran at any point during or shortly after the fire, assume the ductwork has some level of soot in it until it's inspected. Running a contaminated system just recirculates the problem through the whole house.
- Discoloration on light-colored surfaces — ceilings, light switch plates, and countertops near windows often show soot staining before it's visible anywhere else.
Things People Often Skip on the First Trip Back
Check the attic and crawl space, not just living areas. Embers and ash settle in attics and under-house crawl spaces even when the visible rooms look untouched. If your attic insulation looks gray or gritty, that's not just cosmetic — it can keep off-gassing smoke odor into the house indefinitely if it's not addressed.
Inspect your well and septic system if you're on one. A lot of homes in the Aspen Acres and Wet Mountain area are on private wells and septic, and firefighting operations, heavy equipment traffic, and ash runoff can affect both. If you haven't had well water tested since the fire started, do that before you start drinking it again. We wrote more about the aftermath of ash and debris getting into water systems in our post-wildfire flash flooding guide, which covers a related but different hazard — ash-contaminated runoff after rain.
Look at your roof and gutters before the next storm, not after. Ash and debris sitting in gutters right now is exactly the kind of thing that turns a normal monsoon storm into a drainage problem at your foundation. Given the flash flood watches already posted for burn scar areas this week, this one has a real deadline attached to it.
Test your smoke and CO detectors — don't assume they still work. Extended power outages and extreme heat can affect battery performance and, in some cases, sensor sensitivity. Replace batteries even if the unit "seems fine."
When Smoke Damage Isn't Just a Smell Problem
Smoke damage does real, measurable things to a house beyond the odor:
- Soot is acidic. Left untreated, it can etch metal fixtures, discolor grout and finishes, and continue causing damage weeks after the fire itself is out.
- HVAC contamination spreads the problem. Every time the system runs, it can redistribute soot particles to rooms that never saw direct smoke exposure.
- Fine ash is a respiratory irritant, especially for kids, older adults, and anyone with asthma or COPD — which matters if your household includes anyone in those groups moving back in sooner rather than later.
If any of this sounds like more than you want to handle with an open window and a box fan, that's what we're here for. We're IICRC certified in fire and smoke restoration, and we handle everything from HVAC duct cleaning to full soot remediation and odor removal — the kind of thing that's genuinely hard to DIY your way through completely, even with good intentions. Our wildfire smoke damage restoration guide covers the technical side of how we test air quality and clear odor at the source rather than just masking it.
Insurance: Document Before You Clean
Before you scrub a single soot mark off a windowsill, take photos and video of everything — inside cabinets, inside closets, the attic, the HVAC filter. Insurance adjusters handling fire claims in this area are working through a lot of them right now given the size of this fire, and a well-documented claim moves faster than one where the adjuster has to take your word for it. If you're dealing with a homeowner's claim for smoke damage specifically (as opposed to structural fire damage), ask your agent directly whether your policy treats it as a covered peril and what the claim deadline looks like — those details vary policy to policy.
A Word on the Recovery Ahead
A fire this size doesn't wrap up the day containment hits 100%. Suppression repair crews are still working the fire lines, roads are reopening in stages, and for a lot of families this is the start of a longer process — insurance calls, contractor estimates, and figuring out what "normal" looks like on a burned mountainside for the next year or two. We've been through this cycle with Southern Colorado families before, most recently after the flooding that followed on the Aspen Acres burn scar itself, covered in our Beulah and San Isabel flash flood article. The fire and the flood risk it leaves behind are really two chapters of the same story.
We're Here to Help You Get Home Safely
Robert and our crew are based right here in Colorado City — this isn't a fire we watched from a distance. We're veteran-owned, IICRC certified, and available 24/7 for smoke damage assessment, HVAC and duct cleaning, soot remediation, and odor removal for homes in Custer County, Pueblo County, and anywhere else along the Aspen Acres corridor.
If you're heading back to check on your place and want a professional assessment before you settle back in — or if you've already moved back in and something doesn't smell right — call us at (719) 676-2456. We'll walk through it with you honestly, tell you what we're seeing, and only recommend work that's actually needed. Call (719) 676-2456 any time, day or night.