Colorado fire: Evacuated residents watch via doorbell cameras as their homes burn

When cameras go offline, residents no longer know if their home has been destroyed or not

More than 30,000 residents have fled their homes in the vicinity of Boulder, Colorado, as 110mph winds sparked multiple wildfires.

Many of those evacuees have no idea whether or not they will have anything to return to after the fires pass.

Horrifying aerial footage shows fires glowing at night around the town of Superior and an unknown number of structures, including houses, have been destroyed.

Some of those evacuated were able to log in to doorbell cameras and other home security systems and watch as the fast-moving wildfires swept towards their properties.

Twitter user Wendy posted footage from a camera outside her home off South Boulder Road, west of Davidson Mesa, saying she does not know if her home is still there.

In the clip, which lasts approximately  one minute and 45 seconds, the fire breaks through thick smoke, fuelled by the extremely strong wind, which can be heard roaring on the microphone.

The flames move at a frightening speed across brush near the house, whipping into the air and consuming everything in their path.

After approximately a minute the worst appears to have passed, but small embers and flames are still visible around the property. Ominously the camera goes offline and fails reconnect.

“Today has been surreal. I’m numb. I have no idea if our house is still standing, if anything is left,” Wendy writes. “I posted this video because 4 minutes before the flames were visible here there was blue sky and the smoke seemed uphill and over a ridge from us, upwind.”

She continues: “This was pre-evacuation, at 1.30pm. Our daughter was not in town. Our son drove to the house to grab valuables just in case. We couldn’t think of much to tell him to grab. We still weren’t too worried. As he drove away the flames swept up to our home. We watched in disbelief.”

Wendy says her message to people is to evacuate when told and to make lists ahead of time “so you don’t have to rely on your crisis brain to think”.

“We are f***ing up our planet (this is not normal),” she says, adding: “I wish I wore my wedding ring when I left this morning.”

James Dougherty, creative services producer for KMGH-TV in Denver, spotted a photo of his own house posted to Twitter by The Denver Post.

The haunting image shows fire and smoke glowing behind his home, still covered in Christmas lights.

Mr Dougherty tweeted: “That is my house in the picture. The one on the right with the lights on. My Ring camera currently shows that my house is still there at the moment.”

He also posted images of the police going door-to-door telling people to evacuate.

Tech entrepreneur Phil McKinney, the retired CTO of Hewlett-Packard, has been monitoring the fire near Louisville, Colorado, through the security cameras at the headquarters of his company.

Bushes in the parking lot erupt in flames having been hit by sparks blown by the wind, but the building has so far remained safe through the night according to Mr McKinney.

The Twitter account US StormWatch posted footage of fire raging through trees and homes in Louisville.

A resident replied with their own footage of smoke moving at great speed through the air above a suburban street.

They write that the video was taken right before the neighbourhood burned to the ground.