DALLAS — A football coach with ties to North Texas lost his home in the devastating wildfires in Colorado on Thursday.
Mark Smith, a former SMU assistant who's now a linebackers coach at the University of Colorado in Boulder, tweeted that his family lost "every material possession we had" in the Marshall fire, which tore through a large suburban area in Boulder County, northwest of Denver.
"Our home, cars and everything we had in our home lost to the fires that ripped through our community," Smith tweeted. "Thank you to those who reached out. Processing how to completely start over and grateful for our health."
The fire destroyed more than 500 buildings, including all 370 homes in a subdivision near the suburb of Superior. There was also an unknown number of additional homes that were destroyed in the greater area, as crews still battled the 6,400-acre fire on Friday.
Smith tweeted the about his family's loss late on Thursday night.
He joined the football staff at Colorado before the 2020 season, and had previously coached at SMU and Arkansas.
Before joining the college ranks, Smith was the head coach at L.D. Bell High School in Hurst.
The fire on Thursday is the most destructive in Colorado history. Entire towns were forced to evacuate the area, and Colorado governor Jared Polis declared a state of emergency.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the Smiths recuperate their losses here.