After a wet spring and a delayed start, wildfire season finally reared its ugly head in Wyoming on Monday as a pair of fires closed roads in the southern and western parts of the state.

Around 4:20 p.m. Monday, a fire southwest of Woods Hole forced officials to close Wyoming 230 south to the Colorado line and Colorado 127 south to Colorado 125, a distance of about 25 miles.

"I understand that most of the fire, if not all of it, is on the east or south side of the highway," Becky Rine, spokeswoman for Medicine Bow National Forest, said Monday night.

She said the fire was reported around 1 p.m. and a reconnaissance plane was dispatched to determine the fire's size.

A tanker plane and a helicopter were meanwhile sent to back up several crews of firefighters on the ground. "We had extremely well-trained crews - out of Laramie, in fact - who were on it immediately," she said.

Laramie is about 30 miles northeast of the fire.

In Snake River Canyon in western Wyoming, firefighters continued battling an 1,100-acre fire that began over the weekend. After closing U.S. 26-89 between Alpine and Hoback Junction on Saturday, the Wyoming Department of Transportation reopened the highway Monday afternoon as smoke from the East Table fire began clearing.

The 23-mile section of highway is heavily traveled by tourists and by people who live in Alpine and work in Jackson. About 8,000 vehicles a day travel the road in the summer.

"We're in good shape now in terms of visibility," said Richard Paulson, spokesman for the Transportation Department.

Smoke from the fire, located about 23 miles south of Jackson, could be seen from several of the area's small towns.

"It's a nasty little fire," said Wade Grant, a volunteer firefighter. "When it gets torching, it just roars like a jet."

The fire forced officials to close three Bridger-Teton National Forest campgrounds and suspend fishing and rafting on the stretch of the Snake River between Hoback Junction and Alpine because of smoke.

Ralph Boyack, of Anthony, Idaho, said he and his group barely managed to grab their stuff from East Table campground on Saturday after completing their float trip.

"It was pretty crazy," Boyack said. "While we were waiting to be allowed through .125to the campground.375 we watched as some of those trees would just burst up into flames all the way to the top."

The fire was not threatening any structures, visitor services or recreation opportunities in Jackson Hole or Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks to the north.