A fast-spreading wildfire that tore through several Colorado towns — laying waste to entire neighborhoods “in the blink of an eye,” according to the governor — had largely burned itself out Friday, with heavy snow expected to douse any remaining embers. At least 500 homes were thought to have been destroyed as the blaze took hold of the town of Superior, just outside the state’s biggest city Denver, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee but there were no deaths reported so far. Shocking aerial footage showed whole streets as little more than piles of smoking ash, destruction that appeared almost total but somehow left one or two homes incongruously untouched. “This was a disaster in fast motion… over the course of half a day. Many families having minutes to get whatever they could — their pets, their kids — into the car and leave,” state Governor Jared Polis said. “Just as in the blink of an eye.” Downed power lines are believed to have sparked grassfires in the tinder-dry landscape that were then fanned by winds gusting at more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) an hour on Thursday. At least 33,000 people in the towns of Superior and Louisville were told to flee, many doing so with little more than the clothes on their backs. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle told a press conference on Friday that he had seen swathes of the town utterly destroyed, while other areas had been spared. “We won’t have final numbers until late tonight or tomorrow, but we are fully expecting this to be 500 or more homes that were lost,” he said. “I would not be surprised if it’s 1,000.” Pelle said the fire had burned in a “mosaic,” leapfrogging some streets but laying waste to others. It “devastated some neighborhoods and some blocks,” and left others “untouched,” he added. Pelle, who said Thursday he expected injuries and deaths as a result of the wildfires, praised the community response in quickly heeding evacuation orders, which he said had saved lives. “It’s unbelievable when you look at the devastation that we don’t have a list of 100 missing persons, but we don’t,” he said. “I am hoping that’s a miracle because it would be given the circumstances.”