Authorities ID human remains found in home near where Boulder County wildfire started last year
The fire sparked inside or near a home on Eagle Ridge Road, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said, before it grew to 1,500 acres and destroyed five houses
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Nine months after a wildfire scorched 1,500 acres north of Lyons, forensic experts have identified the human remains found inside a home, where the Stone Canyon fire is believed to have started.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office office said Tuesday it believes Kevin James Tracy, 74, was the person whose remains were found in a single-family home at 2602 Eagle Ridge Rd. in unincorporated Boulder County, after the Stone Canyon fire sparked July 30.
Authorities believe the fire started inside or near the house Tracy was in, or in a nearby shed, before it spread to surrounding trees, brush and wildland. The fire continued to spread and destroyed five homes.
After several attempts to identify Tracy by using DNA samples, the county coroner’s office identified him with “compelling circumstantial evidence” from law enforcement, Tracy’s family, financial institutions and the federal government, the sheriff’s office said.
Investigators ruled out lightning as a cause of the fire, but were unable to collect enough evidence to determine its exact cause, the sheriff’s office said. Federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the state’s fire division, along with local authorities in the investigation.
The Stone Canyon fire was one of three along the Front Range that forced thousands of people from their homes in the foothills north and west of Denver during the last week of July 2024. Firefighters from around the state and country raced to control the flames amid very dry and hot conditions in Colorado.
