Avalanches can happen in your front yard.

The Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) is advising people who live in the mountain foothills and canyons whose roofs are weighted down with two feet or more of snow not to hang out underneath the eaves for very long.

As the weather warms, that build-up of snow on the roof can slide off and bury a person shoveling snow or a child playing underneath it.

Last year, a 5-year-old girl from Scottsdale who was staying with her family in Purgatory Creek near Durango died when she, her father and brother were buried by 2-3 feet snow.

The roof avalanche happened as the three were walking between their car and their home. They were rushed to the hospital where the father and son survived but the girl, who was under the snow for 19 minutes, had stopped breathing but later died at Children’s Hospital in Aurora.

The multiplex where the family was staying was at 8,900 feet.

Kelsey Been, public information officer for the CAIC said that most people are not concerned about an avalanche coming from a roof because “it’s just not on their radar.”

The CAIC documented four deaths in Colorado and 19 total deaths in the United States due to roof avalanches between the winters of 1993 and 2022. Roof avalanches accounted for about 2% of the total avalanche fatalities in the United States over the 30-year period.

CAIC Northern Mountains Region Regional Director Michael Cooperstein said that snow slides more easily off of metal roofs, but that as the weather warms up, all roofs are susceptible.