Wildfires threaten summer tourism
1.3 million acres have burned, including at popular sites
MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. – Brutal wildfires across the West have placed 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 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. 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.
With the nation’s privately owned fleet of heavy air tankers already in use or unavailable, U.S. Forest Service 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 said 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 head of the state’s tourism office said it’s too soon to know how the fires will affect tourism. But Al White, director of the Colorado Tourism Office, insisted, “The active fires represent a very, very small piece of Colorado.”