Fright Acres in Parker will reopen Halloween weekend following suspicious fire

Posted: Oct 29, 2021 / 06:30 AM MDT

Updated: Oct 29, 2021 / 06:33 PM MDT

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PARKER, Colo. (KDVR) — The Fright Acres haunted house attraction that burned on Monday will reopen for Halloween weekend.

The fire caused more than $50,000 in damage and investigators have called the fire suspicious.

The investigation is focused on two people seen on surveillance video walking into a building at Fright Acres shortly before the fire started.

The owners of Fright Acres said there are three areas left to walk through and the attraction will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday starting at 7 p.m. There will be a rerouted trail at Fright Acres because of the fire.

What Fright Acres is doing with the burned area

The park’s owners figured out a way to salvage part of the burned area: They will use it as part of the display.

“We just decided to light it and let people see it, smell it and experience it. This is scary that stuff like this could happen,” said Jeff DeWeese, the operations manager for Fright Acres.

Part of what was to be an underground dungeon burned Sunday night. But from the ashes comes a new experience, owner Steve Petalas said.

“We just diverted and rerouted around it all and we are just going to let people look at what they did,” Petalas said as FOX31 toured the park a few hours before it opened Friday evening.

There will still be plenty to scream about at the beloved haunt.

“Everybody that was acting in there, we are going to be repositioning out to the other areas so probably put a lot more people in the corn,” DeWeese said.

Small, seemingly harmless cottages by day turn into a hair-raising scene by night.

“We still have our cemetery, and we have our zombie town and we still have chainsaws chasing people. So you can still get chopped up by a chainsaw here if you want,” DeWeese joked.

But perhaps the scariest scene of all will be the real dust and ashes from the suspicious blaze.

“Nothing we could put on would be as scary as this. This is real life,“ DeWeese said.

South Metro Fire Rescue investigators are asking anyone who might have information about the people seen in that video or who might have information about how the fire started.

Fright Acres will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.