Campground owners reached out to CCLOA to express their statuses, frustrations and concerns during the summer wildfires. Between cancellations, mixed signals from local authorities, the loss of communications from Monte Vista to Leadville when a station that carries fiber optics for Verizon was burned down and, of course, personal fears about their own properties, the 2018 summer season forced Colorado campground owners to endure considerable hardship during the peak camping season.
In case you missed the news, wildfires created these situations for some of our members:
- La Veta’s Circle the Wagons RV Park and Durango’s Westerly RV Park were in line for evacuation for quite some time but never received that final dreadful call.
- Silverton’s Silver Summit RV Park and Molas Lake Campground spent many days dealing with closures of US Hwy 550, first due to fire and then to multiple mudslides. I’m sure the impact was also felt by other members in Ouray and Durango.
- Grand Lake’s Elk Creek Campground and Winding River Resort were evacuated on a Thursday and reopened the next day, but by then some of their weekend reservations had cancelled.
Those above weren’t alone! Many other areas felt the impact. Some people said that the media was so loud and bold that travelers felt that Colorado as a whole was on fire. Although I (the executive director) was (and still am) heartbroken over each evacuation, pre-evacuation and cancellation, the messages we distributed focused on declaring that Colorado remained OPEN.
Simultaneous to our first press release on the topic, the Colorado Parks & Wildlife posted their press release (we were literally texting one another as we typed). The Colorado Tourism Office distributed a press release that expressed how large Colorado is in relation to the areas on fire (among many other facts and words of encouragement). And later that day, and several times since then, Governor Hickenlooper spoke on the topic.
Our first press release was sent to news sources in Colorado’s print, TV and radio markets, ARVC, and our own industry’s news sources. ARVC requested to know where the campers lived who were cancelling. In turn, they further distributed our news to the media in those areas (primarily TX, NM, AZ, OK and AR).
LINKS TO OTHER INDUSTRY NEWS ARTICLES (In addition to news stories,
6/14/18 Woodalls Campground Management article
7/12/18 Woodalls Campground Management Article
7/18/18 YouTube video (click to see) published by The Durango Herald, taken during the flooding at Durango North / Riverside KOA (they had also been under mandatory evacuation in June, with the start of the #416Fire)
7/19/2018 the US Forest Service posted this aerial shot of the mud at Durango North / Riverside KOA (they had also been under mandatory evacuation in June, with the start of the #416Fire)
7/20/18 A follow-up article by Woodalls Campground Management, published after they interviewed several people, including CCLOA’s Executive Director.
July isn’t over yet, but we sincerely hope there is no further wildfire or mudslide news to share here. (We’ll update this post if news develops.)
P.S. Other states were impacted by Colorado’s wildfires. A representative from the Kansas Office of Tourism and Travel reported to me that there was a decline in pass-through traffic to Colorado that was felt across their state.
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Colorado Campground & Lodging Owners Association (CCLOA) 