YODER – Laura Hansen stepped outside the Antioch Community Church on Tuesday morning and felt the heat of a wildfire on her face.

Hansen and a handful of other rural El Paso County residents were in the church preparing for holiday festivities when they got word of a fast-moving grass fire shooting across the plains, toward their homes and to the church. Once outside, Hansen saw flames licking at the row of pine trees in front of the church.

Firefighters were already there, and they told her to get out.

Crews from all corners of El Paso County flooded into Yoder Tuesday morning to kill the fire.

New protocols for mutual aid adopted after the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires brought a tremendous response to the 30 to 40 homes off Boone Road surrounded by fire: firefighters chased flames to doorsteps while dozens more crews waited to relieve them and a helicopter and a special thermal-imaging plane flew overhead to help detect hot spots.

The rapid response stopped the fire far short of a catastrophe. It burned 600 acres, destroyed some outbuildings and damaged one home, according to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, which did not have specific numbers or addresses.

Some downed power lines were reported, but there were no outages as of Tuesday night, said Telly Stanger, chief member services officer for the Southeast Colorado Power Association. By Tuesday night, homeowners who evacuated were allowed to return home, although fire crews planned to watch the area overnight.

Despite how quickly crews controlled the blaze, a grass fire is nothing to dismiss. Though the plains of Yoder lack the dense, dry pines in places like Black Forest, a wet spring and a dry fall primed the thick prairie grass to burn faster than any forest.

“We’ve benefited from the moisture, however, it’s kind of a double-edged sword when it dries out,” said Jeremy Gardner, chief of the Tri-County Fire Protection District in Rush, one of 12 agencies that helped fight the fire.

A resident reported the fire around 10:30 a.m., and was told to evacuate while crews raced to the neighborhood south of Yoder, near Fossinger and Boone Roads.

Down the road at the Yoder post office, on Yoder Road and Colorado 94, post mistress Melissa Allison smelled the fire before she saw it – she had left the office’s back door open to let in the warm morning breeze. But a few miles away the breeze was fanning flames as high as electric poles. When Allison stepped outside she saw the billowing smoke cloud rising to the southeast.

“It just rolled and rolled,” Allison said.

Shortly after 10:45 a.m., the first firefighters on scene found a 20-acre fire that was rapidly spreading, and called for help from Peyton and Calhan.

“Send me whatever you’ve got,” one firefighter said over the radio. “We do have heavy fire involvement at this time.”

Within minutes, the heaviest fire surrounded Antioch church and homes on Boone Road, where fire trucks driving in were jammed with residents driving out. A reverse 911 call was sent to 127 homes, and a voluntary evacuation was issued. Firefighters had zeroed in on a grid of fire, and were trying to keep flames south of Fossinger, west of Edison Road, east of Yoder Road and north of Truckton Road.

Meanwhile, firefighters on the west end of the blaze saw outbuildings ignite, and to the north smoke thickened while firefighters surrounded a home. About 11 a.m., firefighters requested that crews from all over the country be brought in to help. The mutual aid response – which drew crews from all over the county and offers from Pueblo County – was part of system used during both the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires to draw help to El Paso County.

But lessons learned from the fires and a strengthened mutual aid network kept the offers for help pouring in on Tuesday.

As crews continued to arrive some had to back out – in places the smoke had become too thick to stay and fight. In one spot, crews called in to urge another crew to get their tender – a water tank on a truck – out of the way of the flames.

“There’s no way you are going to stop that fire,” a firefighter said on the radio. “You need to get those vehicles out of there and let that fire burn through.”

Less than an hour after the fire started, crews from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Security, Cimarron Hills and Falcon joined the fight. By 11:45 a.m., crews were close to containing the fire.

Two hours after it started, the billowing smoke from the blaze was gone from the horizon. The fire did not destroy any homes, although it burned a black swath onto the prairie. Near Antioch church, the fire was stopped at Boone Road, where burned fence posts were smoking hours later.

Back at the post office, Hansen and her evacuated neighbors gathered to check in and swap stories. She regrouped with her husband Swede, who had seen the fire rolling down Boone, and worried that the power would be out for days, was grateful he had just refilled the livestock water tank. The Hansens had also seen the fire cross their pastures where their cattle and horses had been left grazing.

“They wouldn’t let us go get my dogs,” Hansen said.

As of 1 p.m., the Hansens had not gotten any word about their home, at 6055 Boone Road, which was in the center of a fiery grid blocked off by firefighters. But losing a home wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to the Hansens, who have been married for 65 years.

“We can start over again,” said Hansen. “As long as you have people, the rest is just things.”