COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Eight times a day, Spencer Wren's red cog trains run to the top of Pikes Peak and tourists take in the spacious skies, majestic mountains and lush tree-speckled plains that stretch to the Continental Divide.
The view from Pikes Peak, which inspired Catherine Lee Bates to write "America the Beautiful," draws about 350,000 tourists a year.
But yesterday, as a giant fire raged nearby, Wren ran only seven trains to the top, and not all of them were full. Ridership this week is down 15 percent from this time last year, he said. But he's more worried that this is just the beginning of a long, dry summer.
"The thing that's really scary is that everybody here today had already planned this trip and bought these tickets before the fire," said Wren, manager of Pikes Peak Cog Railway. "My worry is for the people who are coming here in July and August."
The six wildfires burning 150,000 acres in Colorado are threatening the state's $7 billion-a-year tourism business, with tourist-oriented companies reporting declines this week of 2 percent to 20 percent.
Tourism is Colorado's third-largest industry. The state draws 24 million visitors a year to its forests, rivers and mountains, as well as to cultural and sporting events in Denver. Officials, scrambling to let them know that the state is open for business, plan a national advertising campaign.
"It's important that we don't try to minimize the impact of the fires," said Bob Lee, who heads the state agency that includes the Office of Tourism. "It's also important to keep this in perspective: Colorado has 23 million forest acres, and 22,850,000 are not burning."
In major cities such as Denver and Colorado Springs yesterday, the skies were blue and the air was clear. Residents of Denver haven't choked on ash and smoke for several days, but the proximity of the capital to the state's largest fire and the national media coverage have raised fears among vacationers, business owners said.
They also blamed the governor, Bill Owens, for making alarming statements about the fires. After he took an aerial tour of the 100,000-acre Hayman fire southwest of Denver this week, Owens described the scene as "a nuclear winter" and said, "All of Colorado is burning."
The governor didn't really mean it that way, an Owens spokesman said yesterday. The remark was intended to be figurative, but it has been misconstrued by the public.
"He's been doing as much as be can to promote tourism while at the same time not underestimating the danger for people here," said Owens spokesman Dan Hopkins. "The big season is July and August, and there's certainly time to get the message out around the country that, for example, Denver is not on fire."
The Hayman fire grew yesterday, to 102,000 acres, officials said. At 20 miles long and 14 miles wide, the fire has destroyed at least 22 homes and forced the evacuation of 5,400 people.
Authorities closed the 1.1 million-acre Pike National Forest, site of the Hayman fire, on Sunday. Three state parks and six state wildlife areas are closed or partially closed. Several reservoirs were also closed, hurting rafting operators.
"It's a low-level anxiety that's taken over with folks," said Duey Wierenga, whose skydiving operation in Fremont County relies on spillover from rafting. Business is down about 15 percent this week, he said, costing him several thousand dollars.
"A lot of people really make bank in the summer in Colorado so they can get through the winter," he said.