Residents across southern Colorado looked up Monday to find hazy skies overhead — the product of wildfires burning hundreds of miles away across the Pacific Northwest and Utah. Smoke became visible throughout southern Colorado on Monday from wildfires in the northwestern part of the United States, as well as in Utah.

The most destructive of the blazes is concentrated near Spokane, Washington. Fires near Spokane have destroyed about 600 homes, businesses, and other buildings, and as of Sunday evening there was no containment on those fires. Further south in the region, a separate fire is compounding the crisis. A fire burning in grassland in western Idaho and eastern Oregon is currently threatening more than 600 homes and 800 other structures.

In Utah, conditions are also active. The biggest fire in Utah as of Monday is the Widemouth 2 Fire, which is burning near Fillmore, about two hours southwest of Salt Lake City. That blaze is among the sources contributing smoke that has traveled into Colorado's southern reaches.

For Colorado Springs and the surrounding region, air quality conditions were set to fluctuate through the day before worsening again. Smoke from these fires was expected to thin out before increasing Monday evening, with thick smoke expected to be visible in southern Colorado Tuesday morning. Residents sensitive to smoke — including those with respiratory conditions — should monitor local air quality updates as Tuesday approaches.

The extent of containment progress on the Washington, Idaho-Oregon, and Utah fires, as well as any resulting changes to smoke forecasts for the Colorado Springs area, remains to be reported.