of and joining us from boulder, colorado. she's an assistant professor, astrophysical and planetary fine says at the university of colorado boulder. welcome to al jazeera, thanks for speaking to us. so, you know, the telescope launched after years and years of delays as well as setbacks. now comes the hard part though. so how significant and historic 1st of all is this launch? yeah, it's great to be here. i mean, this is really the biggest talk of we've ever launched into space. it's more than 20 feet across in diameter on the mirror. and in comparison, you know, hubble space telescope, you know, state of the art instrument is only about a meter across. so, so this is, you know, an enormous feet to actually launch this into space. how difficult and complex is the journey though. yeah. so the launch is really kind of the 1st step here. what happens now is actually in order to fit the telescope into the rock, it had to be folded up. and so now that the telescope has been released from the pairing, it starts this journey to l 2 and it's going to slowly start unfolding itself. and i think if i remember correctly, there's more than 30

. >> we're starting to hear stories like that of the university of colorado boulder's assistant football coach who said that he lost every material possession he has. he has to start over completely. a lot of people are going to come back to their homes and find out that they -- they do have to start over. really devastating start to the new year, phil. >> totally. no loss of life which is a miracle but real homes and houses and people's lives. a lot of devastation on the ground. great reporting. thanks so much. >>> i want to bring in captain pixley of the denver fire department. thanks so much for your time. you guys have had multiple crews in boulder county. there were some amazing pictures on the twitter account. what are teams on the ground telling you of what they have seep over the course of the last day? >> i have to tell you, it is the most remarkable stories that we're getting back, that hour firefighters basically said that they were surrounded by fire. we deployed around 31 firefighters to assist with the request that came in from the state yesterday afternoon, and our firefig

we're already hearing from folks like the university of colorado boulder assistant football coach who said he's lost every material possession he has and has to start completely over again. just really devastating stories here. i'm sure we'll hear more of that as people start to discover the fate of their homes. >> and we just saw those aerial pictures that the governor is also seeing. they're just stunning. it looks like a bomb was just dropped in these areas. you see the smoke in the air and so many neighborhoods completely damaged. the homes are not standing anymore. all you see is ash and smoke and some homes here and there scattered that were able to escape this ferocious wildfire driven by these really strong hurricane-force winds. the national weather service says a truly historic windstorm fanned these wildfires, but high winds are not the only thing fueling the fires. jennifer gray has more on that now. jen? >> you're right. the drought situation in colorado is one contributing factor to the wildfires. 100% of the state is under drought conditions right now. in fact, more tha

including the university of colorado boulder assistant football coach. he's love every material possession he owns, has to start over completely. real miracle here is so far there are no reported fatalities and if holds, that is a new years miracle. >> thank you for being on the ground in superior colorado. and there could be many relief in store for folks in colorado. there are domminishing winds and as natasha reported there is even snow and that is expected to improve conditions. let's drill in with this on all allison chinchar. tell us about the impact of how it could effect things in colorado. >> moisture is the thing that colorado needs. they are very dry and snow is a form of moisture. so getting some of the snow showers in are likely going to help to bring up the humidity levels an the moisture for the state. now we've got winter weather advisory in purple on the eastern side of the rockies and then the winter storm warning, the pink when you start to get much higher into elevation there. we've got snowe snow showers around the advicin of boulder

the marshall and middle fork fires broke out yesterday near the city of boulder, which is home to the university of colorado. authorities said today that the fires appear to be contained, but not before at least 500 homes were destroyed last night . you could see how the flames tore through the area in such a short amount of time winds gusting more than 100 miles an hour. swept through, officials say they were these fires were initially started. they believe by downed power lines. at least 30,000 people had to be evacuated in the towns of superior, louisville and broom veld. broomfield here's a look at some of the destruction this morning. the boulder sheriff said that one first responder in six other people were hurt, but so far there are no reports of any missing people. today, the governor pledged the state will help families rebuild. so far, it looks like the two major hospitals in the areas were spared. looks like schools were spared. and we might have our very own new year's miracle on her hands if it holds up that there was no loss of life. earlier in the day, the governor toured the devastation by h