More than 50 people packed a meeting room at Woodland Park High School Monday night to learn the fate of homes and land in the path of the 970-acre Springer fire.

The meeting, held by local officials, offered residents an update on the fire and good news after two days of worry. Officials told residents that efforts to control the blaze were going well and credited calmer winds with allowing firefighters to get an upper hand. They’re hoping for calm winds Tuesday as well.

Residents who attended the meeting have had plenty to fear in recent days, with fires popping up in the tinder-dry forests.

David Biono, from Lake George, lives eight miles from the fire and has been ready to flee his home on a moment’s notice.

“I felt it was best to be ready to go,” Biono said. “I’m not on evacuation orders, I’m not on standby, but if the wind changes everything changes.”

Mike Cristillo of Lake George loaded up with his wife and fled the flames Sunday to stay with his son in Florissant.

He wasn’t ordered to leave, but feared the flames.

“I say say get out before anything happens,” he said.

Pat Dimond and her husband Dave came to the meeting from Boulder County for a house in Florissant they’ve had for 26 years. Their home is a long way from Springer’s flames, but since the Hayman fire a decade ago, they’re worried that the blaze could range far and wide.

“Everything is being done but the rest is up to Mother Nature,” Pat Dimond said.

More than 150 homes were evacuated Sunday as the fire blazed through hundreds of acres near Elevenmile Canyon, outside Lake George. Also evacuated were several summer camps, including one hosting hundreds of Boy Scouts.

Dozens of evacuees spent Sunday night at a Red Cross shelter established at Woodland Park High School, but few remained Monday, with just one family seeking refuge by evening.

Fear of the fire, though, remained widespread all day.

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Terry and Terri VanKeuren arrived last week to check on their cabin and Terri’s late father’s cabin in the Arkansas fire. While they call Castle Rock home, they have been here making sure the cabins in Sportsman’s Paradise are OK.

Terri said the smoke looked a lot better than Sunday night. Standing outside Lake George Cafe and Pizzeria around noon on Monday, she said that Sunday night in the same place smoke was billowing up over the lake and that it looked like “big old storm clouds.”

Sunday night the couple went to their cabin to see what they could do.

“We gathered everything of value and put it in the middle of the floor,” Terry said.

The VanKeurens got to the Lake George Charter School at 6:30 a.m. Monday and were led to the cabin where they had 30 minutes to get everything they wanted.

“It was eerie,” Terri VanKeuren said. She said the sun wasn’t visible because of the smoke.

“This is so much better,” she said of the fire on Monday.

“I feel OK, I mean I am scared” Terri VanKeuren said. “I didn’t sleep at all last night. It’s very weird that it (the Hayman fire) was ten years ago.”

Terry VanKeuren said that he thinks fires will begin being more usual.

“Over the last 10 years, it’s gotten so much worse with the beetle kill. It’s going to be more commonplace here.”

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Gloria Thompson, 68, waited just after 8 a.m. Monday across from Starky’s General Store in Lake George.

Thompson, who evacuated from her home Sunday evening, had driven by the town fire station in hopes of receiving a report about her home. Officials told her to meet at the site along U.S. Highway 24 for a public information meeting.

The Lake George resident of six years said she came home from church Sunday at about 4:15 p.m. “driving through the smoke.” A neighbor told her of the evacuations, so she and others packed up belongings and left their homes south of town.

Thompson stayed in Woodland Park with a friend Sunday night and said it is hard to stay optimistic.

“We’ve got a lot of prayer chains going, even in Oklahoma where my daughter lives,” Thompson said. “God takes care of us. That’s made me stronger for this challenge.”

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Reporters Matt Steiner, Ellie Cole and Nathan Vail contributed to this report

Photo by Courtesy photo / Allen Greenberg