Wildfire smoke spreads across Colorado as Western fires burn on

Colorado air-quality officials issued a wildfire-smoke health advisory at 8:16 a.m. MDT Monday, June 29, 2026, covering large parts of western, central and southeastern Colorado, after placing the Front Range Urban Corridor under an Action Day Alert at 4 p.m. Sunday, June 28. The alert stretched from Douglas County north through Larimer and Weld counties, including the Denver-Boulder area, Fort Collins and Greeley, as smoke from fires elsewhere in the West moved into populated corridors far from the flames.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said the advisory also covered Grand, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Summit, Eagle, Garfield, Mesa, Delta, Pitkin, Lake, Park, Chaffee, Gunnison, Montrose, Ouray, San Miguel, Dolores and northern Montezuma counties. The agency’s Colorado Smoke Blog and wildfire-smoke health information are the best places to track changing conditions tied to Colorado wildfire activity, prescribed burning operations and smoke drifting in from other states. Regional officials urge residents to watch air-quality alerts closely as smoke levels rise and fall through the day.

The immediate fire picture remains concentrated in Utah and other Western states, where thousands of acres have burned. Federal wildfire pages for incidents managed by the U.S. Forest Service and listed on InciWeb are the main public sources for evacuations, road closures, maps, photographs and current situation updates. The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s incident map tracks personnel counts, costs, acres burned, percent contained and structures threatened, numbers that can change quickly as crews build line and shift tactics.

For travelers and families, the impact has extended well beyond burn areas. Utah wildfires have previously closed U.S. Highway 89 and forced school sporting events to be canceled or moved because of smoke. In another Utah fire, evacuation orders were lifted for hundreds of homes after the blaze destroyed three homes and damaged eight others.