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'Ungodly' fire destroys couple's ridge-top home
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FarkAs Chris Chiller and his wife, Angela, surveyed the charred and blackened landscape of their ridge-top property, he noted a silver lining.
"I think we may have addressed the thistle problem," Chris half-heartedly joked.
Earlier this month the Chillers - pronounced "Shiller" - lost a home, a shop, a mobile home and vehicles in the Alabaugh Fire, seven miles south of Hot Springs.
Friday morning, they took a walking tour of their 17 acres on Cascade Springs Road, which runs along a ridge above Alabaugh Canyon. The violence of the fire was apparent in pools of melted glass, aluminum and fiberglass. It was evident in a twisted metal box, barely recognizable as a refrigerator, and in rows of deck screws that were the only evidence of a former structure.
Still, the Chillers count themselves immeasurably lucky.
Their friend and neighbor, Dave Beeman, who once rescued Chiller's elderly father in a blizzard, lost his life, probably because he returned to his burning home to retrieve a dog. "That would be so Dave Beeman," Angela said.
Chris added, "He was just one of these placid, calm, capable guys."
Beeman's death was by far the heaviest toll in the fire whose bill totals at least $6.2 million in suppression costs and lost property - and likely much more.
The Chillers also are quick to point out that a dozen or so of their closest neighbors lost their primary residences, while the Chillers lived only about a quarter of the time in their home on Cascade Springs Road.
Still, the Chillers are in a unique position to gauge the severity of the fire.
Their main home is north of Deadwood, which also is headquarters for their remodeling and restoration business, called A Job Well Done. The Chillers are construction and design specialists with technical educations - he in industrial design and she in geology, hydrology and environmental engineering.
Because of their backgrounds, the Chillers could provide an instructive, clinical tour of their property, though Angela admitted that her first trip back to house, with a sheriff's deputy soon after the fire, was more difficult. "I was walking around, shaking uncontrollably," she said. "Really, I was in shock."
The Chillers had recently completed a complete remodeling of their Cascade Springs Road house, including a gourmet kitchen and a Jacuzzi.
"Oh my gosh, it was a lot of work," Chris said.
They had turned the house into a getaway, often used by friends from the Northern Hills as a "launch site" for drives to Denver. "They could spend the night here and get a good start early in the morning," he said.
"There was always someone here." Angela added.
Now, three concrete-block walls are the only recognizable structure. The top floor, including the kitchen, had collapsed into rubble into the basement.
"I think this is the big French doors, this pool of glass here," Angela said.
"That's the refrigerator, if you can imagine it," Chris said, then he reached inside a contorted box. "Look, there's a beer," he joked, pulling out a blob of melted aluminum that might very well have been a beer can.
Chris picked up a small chunk of granite, formerly a countertop, and easily broke it in half, like a burnt piece of toast. A silica matrix makes granite hard, Angela explained. "The silica just went pfssst!" she said, leaving only more heat-resistant minerals.
Other debris was almost unrecognizable. "That black stuff was vinyl tile," Angela said.
But a patch of cement in the floor still bore an inscription from Chris Chiller's daughter: "Emily Chiller 9/25/95."
The fire had been hot enough to roast nearby limestone boulders into quicklime, a material used in cement.
A cache of sandstone rocks from historic Hot Springs buildings was so thoroughly baked it was useless for construction.
"The temperature had to be ungodly," Chris said.
Stainless steel objects remained - an urn, for example, used as an outdoor ashtray, but the Teflon-coated aluminum pots and pans were nowhere to be found. "They're just plain gone," Chris said. "I don't know if they melted or if they burned, but they're gone."
Everything has been weakened by the intense heat. Chris pushes on the cinderblock wall, rocking it a few times, and it collapses.
Some of the Chiller's most valuable items were in a nearby shop, including $14,000 worth of new windows yet to be installed in the house.
"That right there is our wall of windows," Angela said, pointing to a surreal pile of misshapen glass. "It looks more like a Salvador Dali painting."
A valuable stash of hardwoods from old buildings is now a powdery ash.
Nearby, another pile of white ashes, on closer inspection, proves to be ever-so-delicate remains of books - 2,500 in all - that included first-editions of P.G. Wodehouse, Zane Grey and other writers. Even the gentlest probing of the cremated pages reduced them to dust.
Half a dozen hulks of cars and vans around the property had been destined for the dump anyway, but a vintage Ferguson tractor wasn't in bad shape, except for the scorched tires. "I have no idea why that didn't burn up," Chris said. "I have no clue."
Some charred trees remain - a few ponderosas and the twisted, sculpturally interesting remains of junipers - but other trees have simply vanished - leaving only holes in the ground where roots used to be. The Chillers will rebuild on this ridge, which offers a panoramic view south to distant pine ridges in Nebraska and Wyoming.
Construction will take a year and a half, they estimate - thanks in part to good insurance and a helpful agent.
Chris and Angela Chiller also have the huge advantage of their own expertise as contractors. But the Chillers urge all homeowners to check the fine print on how replacement costs are reimbursed and exactly what is covered.
The fire will cost them many thousands of dollars. "You just don't expect that everything will be gone," Angela said.
That's one reason they cling to a gallows sense of humor. "If you can't laugh about it, it will kill you," Chris said.
Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com
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