Media

Listen to Andi’s most recent interview on Public Radio:
Colorado Matters with Ryan Warner
March 29, 2012
Fire Victims Begin Long Journey Home

Read about Andi’s story in the New York Times:
A Colorado Blogger on Losing Her Home to a Fire
By Caroline Dworin
Published: March 2, 2011

“When Andi O’Conor’s house in the foothills west of Boulder, Colo., burned down last September, she began to blog….The blog, which began as e-mails to friends and colleagues, turned into a chronology of heartbreak, confusion and pain. Yet, suddenly homeless, Ms. O’Conor discovered an unexpected delight in the chance at renewal.” To read the whole feature, click here.

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Boulder Magazine, Winter 2010

The Fourmile Fire: Trial By Fire
Displaced Victims Tread the Uncharted Territory Between Ruin and Redemption
by Mark Collins | Photographs by Greg Lefcourt

About 11 a.m. Sept. 6, the phone rang at Andi O’Conor’s mountain home west of Boulder. The recorded voice of a dispatcher warned O’Conor that a fire had broken out a canyon away. She might need to evacuate. O’Conor didn’t pick up the phone because she was on a kayaking trip 1,700 miles away in Washington State. And she didn’t pick up the phone the next six times a reverse-911 call left a message with evacuation instructions…

To read the whole story, click here.

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Burning Down the House -
Best Personal Blog of 2010, Westword.com Web Awards

“A touching, incredibly well-written blog by a woman whose house has burned down twice — once at the age of twelve and again in the Four Mile Canyon fire earlier this year. No persona, just enthralling entries from a rare perspective.”

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Burning Down the House on MSN

A ‘poet of loss’ shares lessons from losing her home, twice

After a Colorado teacher’s home burned to the ground, she started a blog chronicling her anger, frustration and moments of joy.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011
By Teresa Mears

When Andi O’Conor lost her home in Colorado to a fire, she was abruptly forced to re-examine her concept of home, to reconsider what really matters in life and what role “stuff” plays.

She is chronicling her journey of loss and renewal in a blog called “Burning Down the House,” with the subtitle “Essays on the Poetry of Loss.”

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Read about Andi in Guideposts

Finding Hope After Catastrophic Loss: How to heal the emotional, mental and spiritual trauma of suddenly losing everything.
By Alina Larson

It’s impossible not to be touched in some way when catastrophes, natural or man-made, hit…When Andi O’Conor, who was on vacation at the time, heard the news that her Colorado home had burned down she literally, physically started shaking…
Read the whole story here.

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Andi reads from Burning Down the House on National Public Radio

The Fourmile Canyon Fire tore through Boulder County six months ago. People touched by the fire gathered at the University of Colorado campus in Boulder recently to share their stories, including Andi O’Conor. After she started to send emails to friends detailing the experience of losing her home, they encouraged her to start a blog, Burning Down the House: Essays on the Poetry of Loss. O’Conor shared one of those essays as part of the special “Words to Stir the Soul” event that was put on by the Center for the American West last week. You can hear a podcast of the entire program on their website.

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Listen to Andi on National Public Radio

BOULDER, CO (KUNC) – It’s been nearly three months since the Four Mile Canyon Fire blew up in the foothills west of Boulder destroying more than 165 homes and damaging scores others. It’s been the most destructive and expensive wildfire in Colorado history. And even with the rebuilding process being eased recently by Boulder County officials, many property owners are still in limbo.

Andi O’Conor pauses as she shuts off her silver Honda at the gate of where her home used to be just off Sugarloaf Road above Boulder.

“Now it’s just a bare, blank spot on a hill,” she says, “This is the first time I’ve seen it since they cleared out the rubble…” (Listen to the entire podcast here.)

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Andi lost her home in the Boulder fire. And now she keeps a beautiful blog about grappling with wreckage to find hope in the afterward. “Life gives us the agony and the ecstasy, every day, all mixed up, all at once, without our permission,” she writes. “Best and Worst are part and parcel of each other…sorrow and loss are only the flip sides of joy and gratitude.”

Indeed. Andi is a woman of words and ideas that make a person think….read more.

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Daily Camera
Fourmile Fire insurance claims require tenacity, patience
Many victims still grapple with claims, coverage a year after blaze
By John Aguilar, Camera Staff Writer
September 3, 2011

Andi O’Conor, who lost her house of 20 years to the Fourmile Fire… writes a blog on her experiences following the fire, at burningdownthehouseblog.com. Read the whole article here. Or click on the “Play” button below to see the Camera’s video interview with Andi.

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Colorado Public Radio
Rising from the Ashes
by David Fender
September 2011

About this time last year, Andi O’Conor was on vacation, kayaking in Washington state, when she started getting a bunch of calls and e-mails. Friends were letting her know that a fire was raging near her home west of Boulder. O’Conor decided to head back…
O’Conor’s home was one of 169 lost in the Fourmile Canyon Fire. In the year since, she’s been writing about rebuilding her home–and her life–in a blog she calls “Burning Down the House: Essays on the Poetry of Loss.” We spoke with O’Conor from the place she’s now renting in Boulder. Listen to the interview with Andi (and see post-fire and current picture of her house site) here.

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