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Monday, Jun 25, 2012 11:30 PM UTC

Wildfires threaten summer Rocky Mountain tourism

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Topics: From the Wires,

Wildfires threaten summer Rocky Mountain tourismPeople watch from Lower Gold Camp Road as a wildfire continues to burn west of Colorado Springs, Colo. on Sunday, June 24, 2012. The fire erupted Saturday and grew out of control to more than 3 square miles early Sunday, prompting the evacuation of more than 11,000 residents and an unknown number of tourists. (AP Photo/The Colorado Springs Gazette, Susannah Kay)(Credit: AP)

MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Brutal wildfires across the West have placed some tourist destinations from Montana to New Mexico in danger just at the height of midsummer family road-trip season, putting cherished Western landscapes at risk along with hordes of vacationers.

In Colorado, the $5 billion tourism industry is on edge as images of smoke-choked Pikes Peak and flaming vacation cabins near Rocky Mountain National Park threaten to scare away summer tourists.

In central Utah, a wildfire in an area dotted with vacation cabins was burning an estimated 58 square miles and threatening about 300 homes. Firefighters had that blaze at 10 percent containment Monday. The Sanpete County Sheriff’s office said that as many as 30 structures may have been lost.

And in New Mexico, firefighters Monday were mopping up a small wildfire that threatened one of that state’s top tourist attractions, El Santuario de Chimayo, a 19th century church north of Santa Fe. The church draws some 300,000 visitors a year and appeared to be out of danger Monday.

Firefighters hoped calmer winds Monday and additional firefighting air tankers would assist wildfires across the drought-stricken region.

With the nation’s privately owned fleet of heavy air tankers already in use or unavailable, U.S. Forest Chief Tom Tidwell said his agency had to call on C-130 military tankers to help. The order came as new fires started in Colorado, Utah, Alaska and Arkansas. In all, more than 1.3 million acres across the U.S. have been charred this year.

Tidwell told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday that about half of the nation’s personnel who are usually assigned to large fires are working in Colorado right now.

“It’s just because it’s so dry,” Tidwell said. “Not unlike New Mexico — they saw very low snowpack, especially in that lower country. Hot, dry winds with dry fuels, you get the ignition, and this is what we see.”

Even as some evacuated residents in Colorado were allowed to return home, tourists streamed out of some of Colorado’s most popular summer sights.

“They don’t want to come back where it is smoky and uncomfortable, so they move on,” said Chris Champlin, operator of the Pikes Peak RV Park, which is usually packed ahead of the July 4 holiday.

The fire that emptied Champlin’s RV park burned out of control at more than 5 square miles Monday, with smoke at times obscuring Pikes Peak.

In Manitou Springs, a tourist town at the base of Pikes Peak, the Blue Skies Inn was back open for business Monday, a day after guests were roused and told to evacuate. But manager Mike Dutcher worried that officials pleading for firefighting help could spook visitors.

“Tourism is a big business in Colorado, and if you hyperventilate when CNN shows up, it hurts a lot of people,” Dutcher said.

One of those people is Tresa Gray, an evacuated resident who also manages a vacation cabin. She’s waiting out the fire in an evacuation center and said she’s already lost a booking for the week of July 4, typically her easiest time renting the cabin.

“You don’t want to come up here and run in fear, especially if you don’t live here,” she said. “It’s caused us to lose some business. If we don’t get some rain, I expect to lose all of July and August.”

The head of the state’s tourism office said it’s too soon to know how the fires will affect the number of summer tourists. But Al White, director of the Colorado Tourism Office, insisted, “The active fires represent a very, very small piece of Colorado.”

Colorado is having its worst fire season since the drought-stricken year of 2002. In June of that year, wildfires charring tens of thousands of acres near the resort towns of Glenwood Springs and Durango and in Pike National Forest near Denver prompted then-Gov. Bill Owens to proclaim that it looked as if “all of Colorado is burning today.”

Tourism and hotel officials reacted furiously. Dutcher remembered the moment well.

“The phones didn’t ring for three days during the height of the season, and when they started ringing again, it was cancellations,” he said

The firefighters near Pikes Peak were assisted Monday by U.S. military C-130 tankers capable of dropping 3,000 gallons of fire-fighting retardant.

In northern Colorado, authorities announced that the High Park Fire had destroyed 248 homes, up from 191. That fire has killed one woman and scorched more than 130 square miles and was just 45 percent contained Monday.

Elsewhere across the West:

— An Alaska wildfire between Mount McKinley and town of Anderson grew to more than 30 square miles Monday. No homes were threatened.

— Despite dry, hot conditions, firefighters battling a fire that consumed nearly 70 square miles west of Ruidoso, N.M., was 90 percent contained, with many residents allowed to return home.

— A wildfire in Tonto National Forest near Young, Ariz., was 65 percent contained Monday as winds slowed to about 3 mph.

— Authorities in southwestern Montana ordered residential evacuations in a small community threatened by one of two wildfires. The blazes were burning in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.

___

Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., Rema Rahman and Kristen Wyatt in Denver, and Michelle Rindels in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

More Thomas Peipert.

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