Crews struggle to contain wildfire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon
Crews had managed to contain about 26% of the Dragon Bravo Fire last week, but that dropped into single digits as unfavorable conditions helped the flames to spread across more than 110 square miles (about 285 kilometers) by Tuesday.
The fire made one of its biggest runs on Monday as it raced across 25 square miles of terrain.
The periods when the fire is most active is spanning longer durations of the day, leaving less time for firefighters to make up ground, fire spokesperson Lisa Jennings said.
'These record dry air masses are just the tip of the iceberg on what has created this fire weather, because it's also been a dry season here and we haven't got any of the monsoon moisture that usually comes in early July,' Jennings said.
She added that type of fuels — towering mixed conifers and ponderosa pines — along with the topography of the rim are contributing to the fire's spread.
Crews on Tuesday continued work to reinforce protections near the Kaibab Lodge, which is surrounded by national forest land. Managers also were keeping an eye on a refuge for the state's fish — the Apache trout — in the North Canyon and a bison herd in the House Rock Valley.
The fire was sparked by lightning on July 4 and initially was managed to clear out vegetation to improve forest conditions. It wasn't until a week later that dry and windy conditions helped to fan the flames, prompting evacuations of visitors and employees at Grand Canyon National Park's North Rim. The historic Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of cabins were destroyed. The rim remains closed for the season.
A bipartisan slate of Arizona's elected officials has questioned the handling of the fire, suggesting more could have been done early on. Following an aerial tour of the damage, Gov. Katie Hobbs met with federal officials and said U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum committed to an independent review.
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San Francisco Chronicle
32 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
'Fire clouds' over Arizona and Utah wildfires are creating their own erratic climate
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Two wildfires burning in the western United States — including one that has become a 'megafire' on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon — are so hot that they're spurring the formation of 'fire clouds' that can create their own erratic weather systems. In Arizona, the wind-whipped wildfire that destroyed the Grand Canyon Lodge is 9% contained and has charred more than 164 square miles (424.7 square kilometers) to become the largest fire now burning in the continental U.S. Another large fire in Monroe, Utah, has burned 75 square miles (194 square kilometers) since July 13 and is 11% contained, officials said Thursday. Evacuation orders were issued Wednesday for several towns in the fire's path, and scorched power poles caused electricity to be shut off in other nearby communities in south-central Utah. 'Fire clouds' present challenges for firefighters Towering convection clouds known as pyrocumulus clouds have been spotted over Arizona's blaze for seven consecutive days, fueling the fire with dry, powerful winds, fire information officer Lisa Jennings said. They form when air over the fire becomes super-heated and rises in a large smoke column. The billowing clouds can be seen for hundreds of miles and can look like an anvil or a dark spear jutting into the atmosphere. Their more treacherous big brother, a fire-fueled thunderstorm known as the pyrocumulonimbus cloud, sent rapid winds shooting out in all directions this week as a smoke column formed from the Utah fire then collapsed on itself, said fire team information officer Jess Clark. 'If they get high enough, they can also create downdrafts and that's something we really watch out for because that can quickly spread the fire and can be very dangerous for firefighters who are doing their work on the ground,' Jennings said. Multiple fire crews in Utah were forced to retreat Wednesday as the unpredictable climate created by the clouds threatened their safety, officials said. The same type of cloud, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has dubbed the 'fire-breathing dragon of clouds,' recently formed a fire tornado that tore through an eastern Utah neighborhood with wind speeds estimated at 122 miles (196 kilometers) per hour. 'Think of the fire as kind of like a hot air balloon, so it adds buoyancy and things rise as a result," said Derek Mallia, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah who studies pyrocumulonimbus clouds and tracks fires in Utah and Arizona. 'You get this towering thunderstorm over the fire, and just like any other thunderstorm it gets really windy underneath it. Because it's the West, these thunderstorms tend to be very dry.' These clouds, he said, may appear more frequently as climate change causes a longer fire season, drought conditions and extreme weather events. Dry conditions fuel Grand Canyon 'megafire' The Dragon Bravo Fire burning on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was sparked by lightning on July 4. It was about a week later that conditions deteriorated, with hot, dry and windy weather helping to push the flames toward the Grand Canyon Lodge and the historic cabins that surround it. The fire destroyed dozens of buildings and forced the closure of the national park's North Rim for the rest of the season as hundreds of firefighters struggled to gain an upper hand. Thursday marked the eighth straight day of historically dry conditions, Jennings said. Humidity levels have been in the single digits, fuel moisture levels are extremely low and wind gusts were expected to crank up to 35 miles per hour (54.7 kilometers per hour). The pyrocumulus clouds have reached heights of at least 25000 feet (7620 meters), and fire behavior analyst Arthur Gonzales said they could go higher. The direction of the wind has been fairly consistent for crews working the Dragon Bravo Fire, and although they've been strong, the predictability has allowed fire managers to more easily position crews on the fire lines. But when pyrocumulus clouds form and the winds become less predictable, Jennings said firefighters often have to be pulled back to safety. Fire prompts power outages in Utah Hot, dry winds fanned the flames of the Monroe Canyon Fire on Thursday as firefighters worked to contain the spread. The fire has burnt 12 power poles, and many homes have been without electricity since Wednesday afternoon. The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings for extreme fire danger in much of central and southwest Utah this week. In Antimony, Utah, 54 miles (87 kilometers) south of Monroe, the town's 123 residents were without power Thursday afternoon. Mayor Kasey King, who was helping people gather food and supplies at a community center, said they could be without power for a week. The power company Garkane Energy Cooperative said it's working to restore power as quickly as possible and has brought in backup generators. Marnie Reynolds, a resident of Antimony, worried for the town's many elderly residents. She has been using a camp stove to offer hot meals to neighbors and is using a generator to help people refrigerate groceries and medications. 'We have been facing a lot of challenges, but we have the best community,' she said. In Richfield, Utah, 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Monroe, Lee Stevens said his yard was coated in ash. He and his wife, who has asthma and is sensitive to the smoke, have not yet been told to evacuate but are making preparations in case the fire spreads. The National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho said Thursday that even with fewer acres having burned so far this year than average, many parts of the country remain vulnerable to new starts and fast-moving flames. Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Grand Canyon fire adds to 7.5 million acres of burned national parkland, analysis shows
In four decades, fires that burned at least partly inside U.S. national parks blazed across more than 7.5 million acres of land, a new USA TODAY analysis of federal data reveals. The 683 fires recorded from 1984 to 2024 impacted 43 national parks, more than two-thirds of the nation's parks. Just this week, fires in the Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park and Grand Canyon National Park are burning thousands of acres with low containment. The Dragon Bravo fire, sparked by a lightning strike July 4, has already burned roughly 100 structures and become the largest fire, by far, to hit the Grand Canyon National Park since 1984. On July 13, the wildfire razed the historic 1937 Grand Canyon Lodge. As of July 31, the Dragon Bravo Fire is now at 94,228 acres and is 9% contained. The South Rim fire in Colorado at Gunnison National Park was spread across 4,232 acres with 41% containment. Which national parks have suffered the most fire damage? In total, the national park fires reviewed by USA TODAY have burned 7.5 million acres, or more than 500 times the size of Manhattan. The largest blaze, the Dixie fire in 2021, burned nearly 1 million acres in Northern California, including 73,240 acres within Lassen Volcanic National Park − roughly two-thirds of the park's total land area. Other notable fires are the North Fork and Clover Mist blazes that tore through Yellowstone National Park in 1988. After decades of fire suppression, Yellowstone managers started to experiment in 1972 by letting lightning-caused fires burn. Then fires in summer 1988 charred more than one-third of the park and were fully controlled only when rain and snow fell months later. That led the federal government to review its national policy on fire management. A landmark report reaffirmed the importance of natural fires but recommended improvements. The National Park Service rewrote its fire management guidelines to require contingency plans, monitoring procedures and stricter decision-making protocols before allowing fires to burn. Among all fires − not just the ones affecting national parks − there has been a statistically significant increase in the number of fires and the acres burned each year. From 2020 to 2024, the number of annual fires has increased 68% compared with the 1990s, the first complete decade recorded in the fire data. The annual acres burned has more than doubled in the same time period. 1988 remains the year with the most fires and acreage burned intersecting national parks, the USA TODAY analysis found. The title for the park with the most fires from the past four decades goes to the Everglades National Park in Florida, with nearly double the number of Grand Canyon fires. Beyond beloved parks, climate change is fueling wildfire conditions. It's also making them deadlier and costlier. Methodology of the fire analysis USA TODAY reporters analyzed data recorded by MTSB (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity), a multi-agency program that maps large fire perimeters and burn severity across all lands in the United States. The data, compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, tracks fires of 1,000 acres or more in the western United States and 500 acres or greater in the eastern states. The data also includes Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Fire boundaries from 1984 through 2024 were merged with National Park Service maps to look for instances in which fires overlapped − even partially − park boundaries. Fires that burned within park boundaries also burned beyond them in many instances. SOURCES U.S. Geological Survey; U.S. Department of Agriculture
Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
‘Fire clouds' over Arizona and Utah wildfires are creating their own erratic climate
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Two wildfires burning in the western United States — including one that has become a 'megafire' on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon — are so hot that they're spurring the formation of 'fire clouds' that can create their own erratic weather systems. In Arizona, the wind-whipped wildfire that destroyed the Grand Canyon Lodge is 9% contained and has charred more than 164 square miles (424.7 square kilometers) to become the largest fire now burning in the continental U.S. Another large fire in Monroe, Utah, has burned 75 square miles (194 square kilometers) since July 13 and is 11% contained, officials said Thursday. Evacuation orders were issued Wednesday for several towns in the fire's path, and scorched power poles caused electricity to be shut off in other nearby communities in south-central Utah. 'Fire clouds' present challenges for firefighters Towering convection clouds known as pyrocumulus clouds have been spotted over Arizona's blaze for seven consecutive days, fueling the fire with dry, powerful winds, fire information officer Lisa Jennings said. They form when air over the fire becomes super-heated and rises in a large smoke column. The billowing clouds can be seen for hundreds of miles and look like a dark spear jutting into the atmosphere. Their more treacherous big brother, a fire-fueled thunderstorm known as the pyrocumulonimbus cloud, sent rapid winds shooting out in all directions this week as a smoke column formed from the Utah fire then collapsed on itself, said fire team information officer Jess Clark. 'If they get high enough, they can also create downdrafts and that's something we really watch out for because that can quickly spread the fire and can be very dangerous for firefighters who are doing their work on the ground,' Jennings said. Multiple fire crews in Utah were forced to retreat Wednesday as the unpredictable climate created by the clouds threatened their safety. The same type of cloud, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has dubbed the 'fire-breathing dragon of clouds,' recently formed a fire tornado that tore through an eastern Utah neighborhood with wind speeds estimated at 122 miles (196 kilometers) per hour. 'Think of the fire as kind of like a hot air balloon, so it adds buoyancy and things rise as a result,' said Derek Mallia, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah who studies pyrocumulonimbus clouds and tracks fires in Utah and Arizona. 'You get this towering thunderstorm over the fire, and just like any other thunderstorm it gets really windy underneath it. Because it's the West, these thunderstorms tend to be very dry.' Dry conditions fuel Grand Canyon 'megafire' The Dragon Bravo Fire burning on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was sparked by lightning on July 4. It was about a week later that conditions deteriorated, with hot, dry and windy weather helping to push the flames toward the Grand Canyon Lodge and the historic cabins that surround it. The fire destroyed dozens of buildings and forced the closure of the national park's North Rim for the rest of the season as hundreds of firefighters struggled to gain an upper hand. Thursday marked the eighth straight day of historically dry conditions, Jennings said. Humidity levels have been in the single digits, fuel moisture levels are extremely low and wind gusts were expected to crank up to 35 miles per hour (54.7 kilometers per hour). The pyrocumulus clouds have reached heights of at least 25000 feet (7620 meters), and fire behavior analyst Arthur Gonzales said they could go higher. The direction of the wind has been fairly consistent for crews working the Dragon Bravo Fire, and although they've been strong, the predictability has allowed fire managers to more easily position crews on the fire lines. But when pyrocumulus clouds form and the winds become less predictable, Jennings said firefighters often have to be pulled back to safety. Fire prompts power outages in Utah Hot, dry winds fanned the flames of the Monroe Canyon Fire on Thursday as firefighters worked to contain the spread. The fire has burnt 12 power poles, and many homes have been without electricity since Wednesday afternoon. The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings for extreme fire danger in much of central and southwest Utah this week. In Antimony, Utah, 54 miles (87 kilometers) south of Monroe, the town's 123 residents were without power Thursday afternoon. Mayor Kasey King, who was helping people gather food and supplies at a community center, said they could be without power for a week. The power company Garkane Energy Cooperative said it's working to restore power as quickly as possible and has brought in backup generators. Marnie King Reynolds, a resident of Antimony, worried for the town's many elderly residents. She has been using a camp stove to offer hot meals to neighbors and is using a generator to help people refrigerate groceries and medications. 'We have been facing a lot of challenges, but we have the best community,' she said. In Richfield, Utah, 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of Monroe, Lee Stevens said his yard was coated in ash. He and his wife, who has asthma and is sensitive to the smoke, have not yet been told to evacuate but are making preparations in case the fire spreads. The National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho said Thursday that even with fewer acres having burned so far this year than average, many parts of the country remain vulnerable to new starts and fast-moving flames. ___ Bryan reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
