Boulder wildfire: Videos show families fleeing Chuck E Cheese and Costco as Colorado consumed with wildfires

People were seen scrambling to get hold of the children to leave the building

Customers rushed to evacuate a Costco retail store and a Chuck E Cheese restaurant in Superior, Colorado, on Thursday after a wildfire started spreading rapidly across the area due to gusty winds.

Thousands of people in Colorado have been evacuated as hundreds of homes were destroyed by wildfires that tore through parts of the state.

Videos on social media showed several people evacuating the store and restaurant.

A video taken from inside the Chuck E Cheese outlet shared by Twitter user Jason Fletcher showed large patches of flames just a few metres away from the building.

Parents were seen screaming inside the outlet as they tried to gather their children to leave the outlet.

Multiple people had to struggle to open the outlet’s main entrance because of strong winds.

Mr Fletcher, who was enjoying the afternoon with his family, told Insider that around noon, people began to notice the smoke outside but assumed the wind would help blow it away.

The scene, however, changed within minutes when people began to notice a large smoke cloud slowly engulfing the outlet’s parking lot.

“Then my wife noticed the flames, and that's when she called out to everybody,” Mr Fletcher said.

He added that everyone was just “gathering their kids and making sure they were safe”.

Another video obtained by ABC-affiliated Denver7 News showed customers leaving the Costco outlet and rushing to the parking lot to their cars even as smoke completely covers the surroundings and the siren of a fire truck could be heard blaring.

Gusts as powerful as 110mph knocked over power lines and sparked grass fires near the town of Superior and city of Louisville, according to officials.

Colorado governor Jared Polis declared a state of emergency on Thursday afternoon after the wildfire spread across Boulder County and parts of Denver.

Over 30,000 people, including hospital patients in Superior and Louisville, were asked to leave.

Sections of the road on the US-36 highway were shut.

At least six people were being treated with burn and fire-related injuries at a hospital.

Early estimates suggested approximately 370 homes in the Sagamore subdivision were lost, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said. He added that about 210 homes were lost in Old Town Superior.

“This is becoming a very high impact wind event for our area, please take it seriously and abide by any evacuation orders from local authorities,” the National Weather Service said in a tweet.