DENVER — All of Colorado is not burning, no matter what the governor says. People here want the world to know that.
After days of startling television images of bright orange flames and mushrooming clouds of smoke from eight huge wildfires across the state, erroneous news reports of mass evacuations from the Denver suburbs and what some people consider incendiary comments by the governor last weekend, officials here are struggling to get another message out: Colorado is still open for business.
"Tourism is many things, and we cannot allow the perception to continue that the whole state is on fire," Mayor Wellington E. Webb of Denver said on Thursday. "It is not true, and our state's economy cannot bear this misinformation to be spread throughout the nation and the world."
Webb's spokesman was among Denver residents surprised to be fielding calls from concerned relatives and friends last week.
"I heard from my brother in Paris and relatives in Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kansas," the mayor's spokesman, Andrew Hudson, said. "They were asking, 'Have you been evacuated?' and, 'Where are you going to go?' "
Mistaken news reports that the fire "was bearing down on Denver" and that 40,000 people were being evacuated from its suburbs were one cause of the concern.
But with the nearest fire more than 30 miles from downtown Denver, the alarm seemed like a joke to residents here.
After flying over some fires on Sunday, Gov. Bill Owens told reporters, "It looks as if all of Colorado is burning today." He also described the thick smoke and ash that blew over Denver as looking like a "nuclear winter."
Owens later took it back. "I was speaking figuratively," Owens said on Friday. "I went to Glenwood Springs, and while fires were still raging in the mountains behind them, I wanted to tell the residents of Glenwood that all of Colorado is with them and they are not alone; in fact we're all in this together."
He was trying, he said, to get out the message about bans on open fires and fireworks and to urge caution. "We're trying to tell the truth and prevent what is a serious situation from becoming catastrophic."