We plan to arrive in Denver July 3 and were excited about our long-time plans of visiting the area. Unfortunately, we are becoming very concerned about the vacation and whether or it will be a worth it to fly out during these wildfires. Can anyone tell me how the Denver area is now? Smoke? floods of people evacuating? Are there other areas nearby to visit that aren't affected by the wildfires? We had planned to stay a week.
thanks in advance for your feedback.

I know how these fires must appear to people in other states, but I wouldnt cancel your Denver plans at this juncture.
The fire in Fort Collins is about 80 miles north of Denver and the Waldo fire is northwest of Colorado Springs which is about 60 miles south of Denver. I sugest that you take a look at some of the fire maps online to see if any of your planned sites are effected. There are a few spot fires burning around other parts of Colorado, but I would say that Denver and the immediate area, including west up into the mountains is largely unaffected. There are literally tons of great places to visit in Colorado that are not affected by any fire.

If your plans for places to visit get smoked out, consider driving west on I-70 to Glenwood Springs.
GS is only 41 miles from Aspen if you wanted to see that.

Please, everyone, Colorado is a HUGE state, full of more gorgeous scenery and vacationing opportunities than you can see and do in a lifetime. Fires are very localized, and you can visit somewhere else if you had planned to, for example, go to Garden of the Gods in the Springs area (Waldo Canyon fire), or camp in the Cache la Poudre (tiny) portion of wilderness (High Park fire).
I watched billowing clouds and flames on the Boulder Flatirons (west of Boulder; Table Mesa fire) last night from 5 miles away; today there are only a few wisps of smoke.
A lot of what's burning is fuel that frankly needs to burn; old, dead trees, pine-bark tree kill, etc. Unfortunately houses built in dangerous areas are getting a lot of attention by the press, and make for "horrifying" news footage.
400 affected campgrounds out of 10,000 and less than 1% of public recreational land affected.
Don't cancel your trips, just make some minor adjustments (if you must)!!

Here is a link someone else provided on another Colorado fire thread here:
http://www.colorado.gov/airquality/addendum.aspx

This is an interactive map on the Denver Post newpaper website that shows the current fire areas, which as you can easily see is effecting only a tiny part of Colorado. Please come and enjoy yourselves.



https://maps.google.com/?q=http://ex...tput=embed&z=7

Thank you for the info. We are excited about our trip to Colorado but some of the news reports had us very concerned. Thanks - we'll keep watching the fire maps and look for opportunities to visit areas not affected.
Does anyone know about any road closures?
thank you

Highway 24 west from Colorado Springs, Baseline Drive/Flagstaff Road in Boulder and highway 14 up Poudre Canyon west of Ft. Collins are the only road closures I know of at the present time. These roads are all very close to the fires that are now burning.

It's amazing how the news can blow things up 5000%. They make it sound like half of Colorado is on fire. Maybe this will help with the pine beattles in the long run.

This map shows the road closures:
http://www.cotrip.org/roadConditions.htm

That's the Colorado Department of Transportation official site for road conditions and closures.

At the moment besides the roads mentioned by martym that are closed due to the fires, it also shows that Clear Creek Canyon is closed due to road work.