UPDATE: Aspen Acres Fire Recovery
Since we began the Recovery Clean-up effort with the Aspen Acres Fire, there have been a total of 674 Volunteer Days with not only CBDR, but including SBDR teams from California, Arizona, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Mexico and Northwest. I conducted two trainings in two of our churches in Pueblo with 80 new volunteers attending! About
35 of them have been able to come out to do clean up with us. These teams have been working hard, even though we need skid steers and Mini-x. One of our most difficult areas has been the lack of roll-offs to put the metal and ash in to clean up the properties.
Majestic Baptist Church in Pueblo West has allowed us to set up at their great facilities to provide housing for all out volunteers, Command Center and parking all our vehicles and trailers. This church is so gracious, and all the staff have been very helpful!
We have been working in Beulah, Rye, Colorado City and Pueblo with both the fire and flooding. With all the experience we have had in Colorado with wildfires, we realized that there is a very good chance of flooding, so we came prepared with all the tools for both situations.
Just over a week ago heavy rain came and caused flash flooding and caused a lot of damage to communities that already suffered from the fires. We have worked on 3 major mud-out jobs due to that storm. Today, Sunday August 16th, we have had severe storms in the fire burn area with more mass flooding, which killed a person who got swept away from the rush of waters and was found a couple of miles down the river later that day. With these storms and another one arriving tonight, we will most likely be doing Mud-out/Recovery for several days once we can get into the areas that need help.
The rain has made several of the jobs impassable and today as we went to check on a job the front of our CBDR F-350 dropped into a large washout and we had to get pulled out by a neighbor. The F-250 has a mechanical issue and will be taken to a shop to have repairs made this week.
Below are the present stats that we have since day one of this deployment:
- 674 Volunteer Workdays
- 11,250 Work Hours
- 32 Jobs completed
- 201 Heavy Equipment Hours
- 170 Loads of Volunteer laundry
- 282 Showers
- 1,621 Meals for Volunteers
- 2 Professions of Faith
- 40 Bibles given to property owners
- 332 Ministry Contacts
I want to thank you for your prayers for all those that have lost their homes and for our many volunteers that have responded to this disaster!
How can you help CBDR with this deployment? By continuing to Pray! By giving to Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief to help with the expenses from our food, supplies used, fuel and items we have had to purchase to be able to Bring: Help, Hope and Healing to these communities. This recovery effort will be a very large expense for CBDR.
Our shut down date for this deployment will be August 29th and this will follow by getting all our tool equipment and trailers back to our Arena in Thornton.
With so many disasters all around the United States volunteers are now difficult to come to assist and those we have are worn out after such a difficult task.
Thank you for your prayers and giving as we continue to Bring: Help, Hope and Healing to those in need. There are so many testimonies to share, and I will be putting more information out soon. By the way, we have updated our CBDR Facebook and soon will be on Instagram.
Your CBDR State Director,
Dennis Belz
* * * Aspen Acres Fire * * *
The Aspen Acres Fire is still burning in areas southwest of Pueblo. We have had 6 of our CBDR volunteers along with two of our WYSBDR volunteers helping as we set up and then began working on Bringing: Help, Hope and Healing to those in need. An Incident Management Team from SBDR Region 1 arrived to help us with setting up our command center. There are 300 homes destroyed along with many outbuildings. As of this writing, there are close to 38 volunteers at our staging site, which is located at Majestic Baptist Church, Pueblo West. These volunteers are from Arizona, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Northwest, and Hawaii.
The church, association and community have been very helpful to us and meeting our needs through the local SBC Churches and Association.
Several disaster cleanup organizations are in the area assisting the homeowners with clean up after the fires. At this point things have slowed down due to some regulations from the county and other agencies, so I am going to put a short pause on sending more of our CBDR Volunteers until we have more access to the properties. We should be looking around the first of August for this.
Please email or text me, if you might be available in August.
To help Bring Help, Hope and Healing through Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief, please consider sending your contribution through one of the three following methods:
Online:
- Click Here and Choose Fund: Disaster Relief ; or
- Go to the Give Tab and follow the link, again choose Fund: Disaster Relief
Send a check (noting Colorado Disaster Relief on the Memo line)
Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief
10390 Bradford Road
Littleton, CO 80127
Thank you for your support!
If you would like to give toward the purchase of the Disaster Relief Property, Click Here, or
visit https://coloradobaptists.org/giving/.
By choosing the Fund “Disaster Relief Property,” your gift will be
used solely for that purpose.
We appreciate your generosity and support.
Thank you for attending our Open House. If you were unable to make it but would like to see what is happening, please contact Dennis Belz to set up a private visit.
Bringing: Help, Hope and Healing
Director: Dennis Belz
720-438-9312
dbelz@ColoradoBaptists.org
www.ColoradoDR.org
Here’s What is Happening with CBDR
Shower Unit in Nederland has come to an end
The Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief laundry unit has left Nederland after it provided laundry services in Nederland, Colorado following a massive fire that destroyed the town’s shopping center, which included their only local laundromat. Our laundry unit and team served in the community from October 13th to November 15th. We were planning to be there longer, but due to the cold weather that came into this mountain community causing difficulty with our water freezing and having to thaw it out, we needed to close the unit.
Some Information:
- Number of Volunteers – 19 (who served several times during this deployment)
- Number of Days – 18
- Total Volunteer Hours – 542
- Total Volunteer Days – 65
- Total laundry loads -188
Our volunteers enjoyed serving in Nederland as several of the residence were very appreciative in having their clothes washed, dried and folded. Our volunteers were dedicated to serving as they were challenged by some cold, snow, and long days as they brought Help, Hope and Healing to those in need.
Upcoming Training and Locations in 2026
March 27-28 (Friday evening and Saturday)
Redemption Hill Church
4811 Bliss Drive
Colorado Springs, CO
April 24-25 (Friday evening and Saturday)
Applewood Baptist Church
11200 W. 32nd Ave.
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ Bring Help, Hope and Healing ~ ~ ~
.
We would love to give you a tour of the CBDR facility. Come see how we are able to Bring Help, Hope and Healing in times of disaster.
Just email Dennis to make arrangements.
Colorado Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Organization
For over 20 years, it has been our objective to serve others in the name of Jesus Christ by meeting the physical and spiritual needs of individuals and communities suffering in times of disaster. Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief (CBDR) is a National Disaster Organization with the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) which is based locally in Colorado. Our combined 42 state organizations have over 65,000 volunteers.
These volunteers have been trained in disaster relief responding to floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes and many other types of disasters both domestically and abroad. All of our CBDR/SBDR volunteers are trained, credentialed, and background checked. These volunteers are prepared to deploy in bringing Help, Hope and Healing to those that been affected by disasters.
Bringing Help
Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief meets the immediate needs of communities affected by disasters, through debris removal, hot meals, laundry services, and more.
Bringing Hope
Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief brings hope through the renewing of broken walls and broken hearts by the hard work and compassion of our many trained volunteers.
Bringing Healing
Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief brings healing through the power and love of Jesus as seen through the efforts of our many chaplains and the every day ministry of our volunteers.
Responding to Mass Evacuation Exercise in Pikes Peak Region
Always ready to Bring Help, Hope and Healing. This week CBDR Feeding Team helped at a mass Evacuation exercise with the Office of Emergency Management and Sheriffs offices in Pikes Peak region.. Way to go – TEAM!!!
How can I help?
Consider donating to Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief. Click Give above and designate your gift to Disaster Relief. (CBDR is a ministry under Colorado Baptist General Convention, a 501c3 corporation.)
Thank you for your partnership in Bringing Help, Hope and Healing to those affected in disasters.
Congratulations
CBDR State Director, Dennis Belz!
Dennis Belz, State Director for Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief received the VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR award at the 2025 CEMA Conference. This conference was held at the Embassy Suites in Loveland, CO on February 12th.
Dennis is in his 14th year serving as the CBDR State Director and has served in disaster relief efforts for over 20 years.
The CEMA conference is the annual meeting of the Colorado Emergency Managers, and many other emergency leadership members. Dennis looks forward to attending this conference every year as he promotes how CBDR can assist the emergency managers and their communities when a disaster occurs.
Alexander Mountain Forever in Our Prayers
CBDR will be closing our work in the Alexander Mountain fires this Saturday, September 21st. Our CBDR volunteers have worked very hard and put in long hours under some difficult conditions. The teams have been dedicated to Bring: Help, Hope and Healing to those we ministered. We did not get to meet all the property owners that we sifted and cleared their properties, but everyone has been so gracious and thankful for the work that has been done.
There are so many great stories to tell about the very fruitful time during this recovery and clean-up in the mountains of Drake, Colorado.
David and Gail Hoffman, who were great hosts, allowed us to stay at their home and use the lower area of their property for volunteers’ campers. Can you imagine having up to 12 people at your home that you have never met and make sure they are fed 3 meals a day for four weeks? They did a fantastic job of making us feel welcome! The community, our hosts, and the Serve 6.8 Ministry provided food for all our meals the entire time. We are so thankful for how all these people came together to make it easier for us to complete the clean up of the 28 properties we worked on.
Thank you for your prayers as our CBDR Volunteers ministered to those in need! Many of us will need to get some rest after this long deployment.
Greeley-Wray-Yuma
From June 3 through July 1st CBDR served in Greeley, Yuma and Wray doing clean-up and mud-out of homes after the rain and massive hailstorms that went through these three areas. When we arrived, it looked like a tornado had gone through as the leaves were stripped off many of the trees, windows, gutters and siding destroyed. Several of the homeowners that had flood water in their basements and into their homes had tried to take care of things on their own, but found it was very difficult to do. When CBDR was asked to assist and we arrived, the mold had already begun to grow on the walls and other areas of the homes. Even some homes had black mold in the insulation of their ceilings. This was a concern that we had that people would not realize that the mold had already begun to grow and may have just covered over the areas. To help the communities we shared with community leaders about the possible health conditions due to the massive mold. We were able to set up at the Fairgrounds in Wray to give pre-mixed SHOCK WAVE to homeowners with directions on how to properly use it. We had a great turn out and some of the people asked us if we would come to their homes to assess the mold situation. Even after several weeks after the storms there was still moisture in the walls and flooring and that mold continued to grow.
We worked in several homes in Greeley that were over 100 years old and had lots of damage from the floodwaters and mold. The basements are more like crawl spaces and very wet mud that had to be brought up in buckets with a bucket brigade. We assessed damage at a couple of churches that had damage that was beyond our scope of work.
We were asked by the Emergency Manager in Yuma and Wray if we could help the Hillcrest Care Center that had lots of window damage from the large hail that hit in the area. On arrival we found that over 20 large windows had been broken and were covered by sheets of plywood. So, for 3 weeks these patients had no windows to look out of and sat in their rooms with just a light. Can you imagine what that would be like? I wish you could have seen their faces when they saw our team come into their center to start working on removing the plywood to cut out areas to place plexiglass for them to be able to see outdoors again! The sweet smiles and words of thanks were precious! From Darkness to Light and they are now enjoying being able to see the sunlight. It would have been another 8 weeks before a window company would be able to come to replace the windows. Bringing: Help, Hope and Healing is what was accomplished on all the jobs that were done.
During this deployment we had 765 volunteer hours, 169 volunteer days and were able to assist owners of 48 properties during this time. I want to thank our CBDR volunteers who spent many hours of hard work in Bringing: Help, Hope and Healing to those in need during this difficult time. I want to thank One Hope Church in Greeley for allowing us to use their property for housing our volunteers and parking our CBDR vehicles. The last two weeks of our deployment, UNC Greeley gave us use of a house on campus to house our teams.
Thank you for your prayers and support as we minister to those in need locally and out of state during this busy year of storms and wildfires. If you are interested in being an active part of CBDR let us know. We can always use more volunteers!
Host a Training
Would you like to host a training in your association or church?
Pastor Dieudonne Anyokwa, Penuel Baptist Church in Aurora, would like to see his church prepare to help those in need through Colorado Baptist Disaster Relief.
Call Dennis for details for hosting training in your area.