From the railing of Lyons’ high school track, senior Leah Shelton can just about make out where her and neighbor Michael Newell’s family homes are located in the distance.

“You see that slurry streak of the red?” she asks. “That was all burned. And our houses are right below that.”

The scars of natural disasters can be hard to miss in a place otherwise known as “the hip little town everybody loves.” And once more, Lyons is dealing in the aftermath of destruction the best way it knows how: by sticking together.

“I’ve never seen so many people call and try to help,” Shelton said after being caught in the town’s most recent fire.

The Stone Canyon Fire that started July 30 is now contained, but only after it left several homes razed to the ground and one person confirmed dead.

Shelton and Newell, a senior and junior in high school, were preparing for the start of classes and the cross country season when their families were ordered to evacuate.

Looking back on it, they describe the warm embrace of the community around them.

“In the time of crisis, everyone here comes together no matter what,” Shelton said of the community. “That was cool to see.”

Neither Shelton nor Newell lived in Lyons during the 2013 flood that killed nine people and left behind $4 billion in damages.

So when the billows of black smoke touched above their neighborhood, dropping ash just outside their front doors, this was new territory.

“It was super chaotic,” Newell said. “My family was sprinting through the house, grabbing photo albums and pictures, and anything important to us.”

“My sister is 9,” Shelton recalled. “She was packing all her little Dollar Tree toys and I’m like, ‘You don’t need these. You need things that are important to you. A journal, pictures.’ Then I looked at my own room and was like, ‘what if it burns? What am I going to miss?’”

Their family homes survived. And they were able to move back less than a week later.

Today, a little more than a month later, Newell and Shelton are back at cross country practice, the respective top runners on a boys’ team that finished fourth at the state meet last year, a girls’ team that took ninth.

The town’s closeness carries over to the program, they say.

“We all have this added empathy for each other because it is such a close-knit small community,” third-year cross country coach David Goodman said. Here, “you kind of care for them more than just some random neighbor or somebody who lives in the same town as me. I think people know each other’s personalities and know more about them than just ‘We live in the same town.’ People are invested in each other.”

Out front, Goodman said Newell and Shelton “are being thrust” into leadership roles this fall.

After graduating nine seniors from last season, the hope is both the boys and girls teams can qualify for the state meet in early November.

Though, the boys team likely has a better shot due to its depth, Goodman said.

Newell, the lone returning state runner on the boys’ side, finished 74th in the Class 2A race in 2023. Shelton, a three-year qualifier, is looking for her third straight top-25 finish after taking 24th last fall.

Now captains of the team, they take a different approach. Newell is quieter, while Goodman said Shelton has no problem getting on her teammates. He smiles. Both are effective.

“They’re taking charge,” Goodman said.