An early morning fire at a shopping center in Nederland destroyed more than a dozen businesses in what residents called a devastating blow to the heart of the town.

The fire also prompted an evacuation order in Boulder County

Business owners and residents said they worry about how long the recovery would take, and some wonder if they could afford to stay in Nederland even as they contemplated rebuilding.

The town’s Caribou Village Shopping Center, home to about 20 businesses and the Nederland Police Department, was decimated early Thursday morning by what officials called a structure fire.

The shopping center was home to a variety of businesses, according to Google Maps, including the Very Nice Brewing Company, Mountain Man Outdoor Store, Tadasana Mountain Yoga, Kaleidoscope Arts Gallery, the Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center and Augustina’s Winery.

The building also housed an office space for the Nederland Police Department.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the cause and origin of the fire, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Division of Fire Prevention and Control, according to a news release from the BCSO.

Nederland officials are asking community members to conserve water when possible, as a significant amount has been used for firefighting operations, the release said.

A ‘devastating’ fire

Seth Colter is a part-owner of Crosscut Pizza and Brickhouse Alpine Kitchen, two restaurants overlooking the strip mall.

Colter started getting texts and calls about the fire early Thursday morning.

“It immediately crossed my mind that our businesses could burn. The whole town could burn,” Colter said.

The fire is “devastating” for Nederland, Colter said. The strip mall contained its local yoga studio, the town’s laundromat and served as gathering spaces for residents.

For business owners, there is a lot up in the air, Colter said.

Best case, they have insurance and get a check in the mail, he added, but that doesn’t give them a new space to do business in a town that doesn’t have much by way of infrastructure.

“Let’s say I owned one of those businesses and then it took two years to rebuild, what would you do?” he said. “You probably couldn’t afford to stay here because most people here are living off of their businesses.”

Colter and other business owners will do what they can to help those who lost their businesses, but they are losing a big part of their community, he said

“It’s been a major part of our community for years,” Colter said. “We’re going to lose a lot. This is a major hit.”

Jason Rensink, who has lived in Nederland since 2009, said the shopping center was “literally the heart of town.”

“This is devastating, literally devastating,” Rensink said. “This is going to be years of recovery for this entire town.”

The town will come together to help the owners of the 16 businesses who lost their businesses, he said, but it won’t be an easy recovery.

“Mountain people are good at that,” he said. “They will come together and make sure that no one goes hungry. But these people will need help.”

A community hub for the small town

The shopping center in the heart of Nederland is owned by developer and real estate owner Stephen Tebo of Tebo Properties. He bought the property in 2014 for $3.6 million, according to Boulder County records. 

Tebo Properties has more than 250 properties around Boulder County and is a major landlord in Boulder, according to its website. 

Caribou Village is a nearly 3.5-acre property home to three buildings, including the Carousel of Happiness. The 30,000-square-foot main building that anchors the property was built in 1985.

The property was assessed for nearly $4 million in 2023, according to the most recent county records.

The adjacent carousel was unaffected by the fire, but it will be closed until until the shopping center has been cleaned up, the organization said on its website.

Numerous people claiming affiliation with the affected businesses shared their dismay about the fire on social media.

“This morning the shopping center in Nederland, Colorado where my gallery was located went up in flames,” wrote Roz Kean Bagtaz, who said her work was displayed at Kaleidoscope Fine Arts Gallery, in a Facebook post. “Even though the gallery was closed I still had the space until the end of the year. My personal art collection is gone. My cats who lived next door at the Stained Glass studio since I moved back to NZ have died in the fire.”

Two fundraisers have already been set up to aid those affected by the fire.

The first, a GoFundMe, has so far generated nearly $25,000 as of Thursday morning. Nederland Fire Rescue has also established a donation portal — more information can be found on the organization’s website.

The blaze, which was first called in by a sheriff’s deputy at 3:41 a.m., also prompted an evacuation order, issued by the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office just before 4:30 a.m. for areas east of downtown and south of the nearby Barker Reservoir, according to the Boulder County Alert network.

That order was lifted just before 10 a.m.

As of early Thursday morning, crews had contained the fire to just the area of the shopping center, located at 20 Lakeview Drive in Nederland’s downtown, according to the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office. The emergency response teams closed roads in the area, including Big Springs Drive and Highway 119 or Bridge Street.

Responding agencies included the Nederland Fire Rescue, Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, Timberline Fire Protection District, Sugarloaf Fire Protection District, American Medical Response and Boulder Emergency Squad.

The public can find more information about the fire or evacuations at bocoalert.org.