The Cretaceous on Fire

A coal fire burning at 2,000 degrees F is visible through a small porthole in the furnace of the Valmont Power Station in Boulder, Colorado. (Image: © Tom Yulsman) In Stephen King's epic post-apocalyptic novel "The Stand," a small band of survivors from a flu pandemic that has killed 99 percent of the world's population gather in Boulder, Colorado and gradually try to reconstitute a civil society. As part of the effort, one of their tasks is to get a coal-fired power plant running again. They succeed. And eventually the story reaches an explosive denouement involving the forces of evil hunkered down in — where else? — Vegas. When I moved to Boulder in the mid-1990s, I was shocked to learn just how large the Valmont Station actually was compared to what I pictured in my mind's eye based on King's novel. And since then I've been yearning to see what it was actually like inside. Last week, I got a chance to take a tour with two of my cameras. The photo above is from that visit, taken with a Mamiya C220 medium format camera on Tri-X film. You're looking at a porthole, about 10 inches high, into the furnace itself, where coal dust is injected and ignited, creating a fire so hot that if you get within a few inches of the porthole, your hair might catch fire. The word "gargantuan" is not much of an exaggeration in describing the furnace, which is probably about 10 stories high.