Dragon Bravo Fire Grows to Largest Wildfire in the Continental U.S.
The Dragon Bravo fire, which has closed the park's North Rim, grew to more than 114,000 acres on Saturday. Its size is expected to increase in coming days because of dry, warm weather.
The fire was 11 percent contained as of Saturday, according to InciWeb, a government site that tracks wildfires.
'We're kind of locked in a dry, breezy, abnormally hot pattern because our monsoon hasn't showed up,' said Benjamin Peterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Flagstaff, Ariz.
A seasonal shift in winds typically brings moisture from the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean to the Southwest starting in late June through September. Thunderstorms wet the landscape, and the air is humid. Not this year. The monsoon season has been very dry so far, the third driest ever, Mr. Peterson said. Many areas of Arizona saw below-normal rainfall in July.
A gauge in the park measured about an inch of rain in July, with most of it falling early in the month. That's more than a half an inch less than normal.
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