Fire forced thousands of Colorado residents from their homes and disrupted vacation plans as smoke shrouded some of the state’s top tourist destinations, including majestic Pike’s Peak and Estes Park, reported msnbc.com.
Colorado is having its worst wildfire season in a decade, with more than a half dozen forest fires burning across the state’s parched terrain. Some hotels and campgrounds are emptying ahead of the busy Fourth of July holiday.
One of the newest fires, a fire near Colorado Springs, grew to more than 5 square miles Sunday after erupting just a day earlier and prompting evacuation orders for 11,000 residents and an unknown number of tourists.
The total number of homes destroyed by a two-week old wildfire in northern Colorado was raised to 248 on Sunday as residents of a subdivision near Fort Collins learned that 57 more homes in their neighborhood had been lost, authorities said.
Officials had put the fire at 6 square miles but reduced the estimated Monday after more precise mapping.
On Sunday, the fire sent plumes of gray and white smoke over the area that obscured at times Pikes Peak, the most-summited high-elevation mountain in the nation and inspiration for the song “America The Beautiful.”
The fire was raging about six to 10 miles from the Air Force Academy as winds fanned the flames in its direction, and fire authorities listed the academy as being threatened by the blaze along with utilities, flood control structures and watershed.
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