SUPERIOR, Colo. — For the first time, a family has moved back into the Sagamore neighborhood in Superior after the Marshall Fire. Bryan and Aimee Ross received their certificate of occupancy in March after breaking ground on their lot in October.
The Town of Superior has only handed out seven certificates of occupancy out of more than 380 properties destroyed in the 2021 disaster.
"It's surreal," said Aimee Ross as she looked out at her new front porch.
Sagamore doesn't look like the neighborhood they had known for 20 years. Their home is move-in ready while construction crews work on the lots around them.
Aimee and her husband, Bryan Ross, watch their community heal after the Marshall Fire.
"I mean just everything I look at outside, it is a little emotional to me but it is a happy emotional and a sad emotional," Bryan said.
More than a year after the flames destroyed everything they'd built, the Rosses are the first to move back to Sagamore in Superior. The couple broke ground in October and they built back a home that felt different.
They changed the colors and the floor plan, and put the garage on a different side than the one Bryan barely escaped the fire from.
"If it wasn't for that one call from my mom, then who knows," he said. "She called me and started talking and I said, there's a fire. She knew nothing about it."
As he drove out, he watched his community burn. Because of that trauma, changing the home they left is helping Bryan and his wife move back.
"Good to be back here, and I am just thankful too to be in the position that I was back here," he said.
They got their keys in March. The first piece of decor inside went up to remind the couple of how far they've come. It was a picture of the day they broke ground. Their builder had it framed for them.
The Rosses questioned if this day would come. Now they watch as their neighbors anxiously wait to move back too.
"But now we want our neighbors to come back just as quickly," said Aimee. "But it is going to be a while for a lot of them to come back."
The Rosses are so grateful for the love people have shown them. Their builders bottled some dirt from their lot, which is now displayed in their kitchen. One day Bryan and Aimee came home to find champagne at their door from a neighbor who wanted to congratulate them.
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