After blackening nearly 23,000 acres in and around Mesa Verde National Park, the Bircher fire is expected to burn out this weekend.

The more than 1,000 firefighters battling the blaze made extensive progress on Thursday and Friday, managing to contain 70 percent of the fire by Thursday night. Firefighters were expected to finish building 5 miles of line around the perimeter of the fire by Saturday evening.

"It’s not over," said spokesman Bobby Kitchens, "Burn-out will hopefully take place tomorrow. It won’t be a large fire, but it will be visible."

All of Mesa Verde National Park’s structures except a historic cabin and lookout tower were saved, and an estimated 15 firefighters have been treated for injuries sustained primarily from heat exposure.

Kitchens said that the park will open after infrastructure and utility problems are repaired, and park employees can return to their residences. He said that it’s difficult to estimate when the park will open but it should be within a matter of weeks and not months.

This is good news for local businesses and county officials, who are worried about lost tourism revenues. "It kind of hurts our feelings that they’re doing advertising that, ‘Mesa Verde is closed — come to Durango’," said Montezuma County Commissioner Kent Lindsay of television ads promoting the Durango area.

Cortez Mayor Joe Keck said it would cost at least $100,000 to run an effective post-fire marketing program to get tourists back into the area.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens viewed the 22,950 burned acres by helicopter on Thursday morning. Owens declared Montezuma County a state of disaster emergency late Monday evening, which provided help from the National Guard and made some state funds available, he said.

"The state’s role is to try and help afterwards in terms of the economic development funding," said Owens.

Owens said he believes the state tourism board would look favorably on granting a request for aid to help local businesses out of the board’s $6 million fund, and believes that the county could see state funding within a few months.

Montezuma County has contributed to the state’s emergency fire fund, a sort of self-insurance fund for counties, but Colorado’s 70 fires this year have drained most of that money already.

The commissioners said a loss of local business after the fire could cause a drop in expected sales taxes, which in turn could slow payoff on the bond for the new jail.

"This is one of those things we’ve never had to deal with before," said Commissioner Kent Lindsay.

Cortez city officials likewise said they were concerned about a drop in sales taxes.

City Manager Hal Shepherd said Cortez might have to implement a freeze on new city projects and a freeze on hiring. The fallout from the fire could even affect next year’s budget, he said.

The Bircher Fire started from a lightning strike in the Mancos Valley on July 20. It quickly spread from agricultural fields into piñon-juniper forest on the boundary of Mesa Verde National Park. Since then the fire has burned over 18,000 acres in the park, 3,087 acres of Ute land, and several hundred acres of BLM and private land.

GOV. BILL OWENS answers questions from Four Corners Broadcasting reporter Joan Dombrowski at the incident command center at the Montezuma County fairgrounds Thursday. Owens said he believes there should be an investigation into early firefighting efforts in the Bircher Fire.

Despite lingering local questions and few official answers, Mesa Verde park officials said on Thursday that there are no plans to conduct an investigation into the beginnings of the Bircher fire.

Park Superintendent Larry Wiese could not be reached for comment, but park spokesman Will Morris said that the decision would be made by the superintendent or the regional office.

"My talks with the superintendent have been to the effect that it’s time to get past the way the fire started and look ahead to bringing tourism back to its former levels," said Morris.

A number of local residents allege that National Park Service officials, concerned about the potential of disturbing Anasazi ruins that might lie underground, prevented the Mancos Fire Department from bulldozing a line within the park boundary after the fire was first sparked last Thursday afternoon.

Fire and park officials have refused to give a specific chronology of the events that took place immediately after the fire began, but acknowledge that the bulldozer policy is part of the park’s management plan.

Mike Znerold, Dolores District ranger, promised at the Mancos public forum on Thursday that officials would have answers for the Mancos community two weeks after the fire was put out.

He said on Friday, "I think there should be answers." He said the public should know what happened that.

Gov. Bill Owens, after touring the fire on Thursday, said he wants to see whether a mistake was made and what kind of lessons there are to be learned and work with the federal government if the charges are true.

The fire reportedly started in trees on private land, the result of a lightning strike that caused a blaze that apparently smoldered an unknown time before it was spotted.

The Mancos Fire Department was dispatched to the area, and shortly thereafter, all the local fire departments were called to the scene, as it was evident the blaze was spreading rapidly, roaring across the valley and toward the mesa.

County bulldozers and water trucks were also called to the area, and some local volunteer firefighters and county heavy-equipment operators have said they were stopped from cutting a firebreak that could have contained the blaze early on.

Western Slope Rep. Scott McInnis has been monitoring the situation, but is not planning on putting pressure on the park service to provide answers to the public.

"I don’t think we’re going to pursue anything at this point. The park service has made their decision, and we’ll probably let it lie, and leave it at that," said Josh Penry, spokesman for McInnis.

A spokeswoman for Intermountain Regional Director Karen Wade said the park service is already conducting an investigation into fire policy that will include the use of heavy equipment. This review was spurred after the Cerro Grande fire was started near Los Alamos, New Mexico by a federally prescribed burn.