Facebook<\/a> on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n\u201cThere will still be plenty of family fun events and lots (of) visitors celebrating our nation,\u201d Conrad wrote, \u201cbut now is not the time to endanger the natural resource of our forest. It is the time to be spreading the message of how serious the fire danger is in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverton\u2019s Fourth of July celebration, which culminates in one of the biggest fireworks shows in the area, is by far the town\u2019s flagship and most profitable event of the year, drawing thousands of visitors.<\/p>\n
The town\u2019s announcement that the fireworks display will be canceled follows suit with the neighboring towns of Durango and Pagosa Springs. It\u2019s unclear if Cortez has canceled its fireworks show.<\/p>\n
Durango and Pagosa Springs plan to host Fourth of July events, sans fireworks.<\/p>\n
As for Silverton, the small mountain town about 60 miles north of Durango has already taken a hit during its peak tourism season because of the 416 Fire, which has largely closed U.S. Highway 550 and ended passenger service on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad since June 1, when the fire started.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to say we\u2019re the largest dead end cul-de-sac in the state,\u201d said DeAnne Gallegos, director of the Silverton Area Chamber of Commerce. \u201cIt\u2019s been brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silverton officials, however, are pushing a strong message that the town is open for business, touting the hotels, restaurants, shops and backcountry trails that are operating.<\/p>\n
Though the San Juan National Forest is closed, lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and San Juan County remain open, notably the Alpine Loop.<\/p>\n
Gallegos said it\u2019s important for people who recreate in these areas to remember Stage 2 fire restrictions are in place.<\/p>\n
And though Silverton\u2019s economy isn\u2019t seeing the thousands of visitors it usually does at this time of year, resilient residents are trying to get by.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, we\u2019ve had people that have driven around (through Ouray and over Red Mountain Pass) and sought us out to support us,\u201d Gallegos said. \u201cOur neighbors have been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"danger prompts cancellation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[598,1562,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-99001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-public-holiday","tag-san-juan-county-colorado","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99001"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=99001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}