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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. 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." 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 55 percent contained Monday. It's the second largest wildfire in state history. 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;
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