Grand Canyon Wildfire Becomes A 'Megafire'
The Dragon Bravo Fire has been burning since it was sparked by a lightning strike on July 4, in an update on Thursday morning, fire officials said the fire has grown to almost 165 square miles, or more than 105,000 acres. That also makes it the largest wildfire of the year so far in the U.S., according to InciWeb, a government site that tracks wildfires. The second largest is the Cram Fire, which burned more than 95,000 acres in Oregon.
Containment of the Grand Canyon fire, which had dropped from 26% to just 4% on Wednesday, rose slightly to 9%.
"The way we calculate containment in an active wildfire is it is a percent of the total fire perimeter that is out cold," Southwest Area Incident Management Team public information officer Lisa Jennings told KTAR News. "We actually have our firefighters going out there and making sure that those areas are contained, and so that feet of contained line continues to increase, but at the same time, the fire has seen a lot of growth."
(MORE: Jaw-Dropping Lightning Strike Caught On Video)
More Historic Structures Threatened
This wildfire has already claimed at least 70 buildings, including the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, and has shut down the North Rim for the remainder of the 2025 season, but now, more buildings are in its path. According to Fox 10 Phoenix, the historic Kaibab Lodge in Fredonia, which was built in 1926, is also being threatened by the fire.
(MORE: Lightning Is A Surprising Tree Killer)
The lodge sits just 9 miles from the North Rim Lookout Tower and has been spared so far, but it's one of the buildings that the 968 personnel assigned to the fire have been working tirelessly to protect from the flames.
"Just say a prayer," lodge owner Larry Innes told Fox 10 Phoenix. "I mean, it's kind of out of our hands. I mean, the things are working our way right now and let's hope it keeps going that way for the next few days."
Another Hot Day Ahead
Unfortunately, conditions are not getting more favorable for firefighters who are battling this massive inferno. And although the North Rim is now closed to visitors, anyone in the area will certainly feel the heat.
"Temperatures are not expected to change much through the end of the week. At the bottom of the canyon, highs will surpass 110 degrees each afternoon through at least Sunday," said weather.com digital meteorologist Jonathan Belles. "Conditions will be dangerous below 4,000 feet, or 1 1/2 miles from the upper trailhead, and hikers are asked to stay out of the canyon between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
(WATCH: Raging Floodwaters Tear Apart Mobile Home)
"This is an extremely dangerous heat that can lead to heat illness and even death," digital meteorologist Jennifer Gray added. "Take the alerts seriously, and make sure you stay hydrated if you are visiting the Grand Canyon."
And What About The Smoke?
"Unhealthy air quality will persist along the North Rim due to the Dragon Bravo Fire nearby," said Gray. "High winds and low humidity will continue to work against firefighters as they battle the flames."
If you're heading out to the Grand Canyon for outdoor activities, or anywhere else where wildfire smoke could be lingering in the air, it's important to know what it can do to your body.
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Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Fire clouds' springing up around the Grand Canyon
Wildfires in Utah and Arizona, near the Grand Canyon, are producing "fire clouds" that can be seen for hundreds of miles and further fuel the fires. The Dragon Bravo fire near the Grand Canyon has become the largest wildfire in the continental U.S. this year, consuming 111,000 acres and destroying the historic lodge at Grand Canyon National Park. The fire is only nine percent contained, as extreme heat and strong winds continue to fuel the blaze, according to the latest update. Both it and the Monroe Fire, burning further north near Monroe, Utah, are generating pyrocumulus clouds — sometimes called "fire clouds" — that form when air over a fire becomes superheated and rises in large, smoky columns. The massive clouds are visible for hundreds of miles and resemble the shape of an anvil. The fires can also generate pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which trigger thunderstorms, and may further fuel the wildfires. "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," Lisa Jennings, a spokesperson for the Southwest Area Incident Management Team, told CBS News. Several fire crews battling the Monroe fire were forced to pull back on Wednesday when fire clouds created dangerous conditions on the ground. "Think of the fire as kind of like a hot-air balloon, so it adds buoyancy and things rise as a result," Derek Mallia, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah who studies fire clouds, told CBS News. "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." If that's not frightening enough, a fire tornado spun up in Utah and tore through a neighborhood with wind speeds of 122 mph, according to the National Weather Service. Mallia said that fire clouds are likely to appear more frequently due to climate change driven by the human burning of fossil fuels. Climate change is producing longer fire seasons, drought conditions, and extreme weather events, as we're seeing play out in the southwest. The temperature and weather conditions in the southwest are continuing to fuel the fires and erasing the gains firefighters have made in containing the blazes. The Dragon Bravo fire crossed a threshold recently, becoming what the U.S. Forest Service calls a "megafire." Megafires earn that frightening title when they reach more than 100,000 acres in size. Driving around the totality of the fire would take about as long as driving from New York to Washington, D.C. According to fire officials, the blaze in Arizona is continuing to push north. In Utah, the Monroe fire has consumed approximately 50,000 acres and the state's governor, Spencer Cox, said "terrible conditions" are continuing to fuel the blaze. 'These terrible conditions that are making it impossible for us to get ahead of this fire exist in every corner of the state right now,' Cox said. 'It would be very easy to have more fires like this one, so we need people to be incredibly cautious.' The Monroe fire is only seven percent contained.
USA Today
9 hours ago
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Video captures fire cloud emerging from Grand Canyon blaze
Burning since the Fourth of July on the Grand Canyon's North Rim, the Dragon Bravo Fire has already become the largest wildfire in the continental United States this year. As of Aug. 1, the fire has already burned more than 111,000 acres, with a current containment of only 9%. Fire crews have encountered low humidity, wind gusts, heat and rough terrain, making it difficult to contain the blaze. In a video shared by a local fire emergency team, thick plumes of orange-hued smoke rise into the sky, creating a pyrocumulus cloud, also known as a fire cloud. 'These clouds can be incredibly powerful. In some cases, they're known to generate storms, producing lightning, or even tornadoes,' the team said in the video it shared on Facebook. According to the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, the fire has already become the 10th largest wildfire in Arizona since the 1990s. See video of the Dragon Bravo Fire Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
CNN
14 hours ago
- CNN
Grand Canyon blaze grows into a megafire and creates its own weather. It's not done yet
The wildfire raging along the Grand Canyon's North Rim became a 'megafire' this week, doubling in size in just a few days and intensifying enough to create its own weather. Hostile weather conditions including intense, dry heat and gusty winds drove the Dragon Bravo Fire's explosive growth and erased much of the containment progress made by fire crews. The northern Arizona fire has burned through nearly 112,000 acres since igniting on July 4 and was 9% contained as of Friday morning, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. It's the largest fire currently burning in the lower 48 states and its footprint is about three times the size of Washington, DC. The Dragon Bravo fire reached megafire status after crossing the 100,000-acre threshold. The blaze has more than doubled in size since Sunday, when it was around 50,000 acres, according to data from Inciweb. Megafires like the Dragon Bravo Fire are rare — only about 3% of wildfires reach this scale — but they account for the majority of total acreage burned in the United States each year. A lightning strike ignited the wildfire on Independence Day and crews initially chose to manage it as a controlled burn instead of smothering it immediately. The fire quickly grew out of control about a week after igniting and fire crews have been fighting to contain it ever since. The blaze tore through the North Rim's historic Grand Canyon Lodge in mid-July and destroyed at least 70 other structures, including cabins and a visitor's center. The fire was 26% contained — its maximum level so far — this past weekend, but worsening weather conditions this week have triggered erratic fire behavior and lowered its containment level considerably. In fact, the fire became so intense that it created its own weather. Pyrocumulus or 'fire clouds' were spotted over the Dragon Bravo Fire for at least seven days in a row, fire information officer Lisa Jennings told the Associated Press on Thursday. Pyrocumulus clouds form over intense heat sources, like raging wildfires or volcano eruptions. They develop because the air above such intense heat is quickly and chaotically forced to rise, which cools and condenses the air's moisture, forming clouds. If a wildfire is hot and chaotic enough it could even fuel a pyrocumulonimbus – a 'fire thunderstorm cloud' – that generates lightning, wind gusts and sometimes produces tornadoes. Additional lightning strikes from these types of clouds could set off new blazes or reignite areas crews have already smothered. Even outside of the weather the fire creates for itself, conditions will remain challenging through at least early next week, if not beyond. An extreme heat warning is in effect for the Grand Canyon through Tuesday and periods of gusty winds will not relent into early next week. Frequent wind gusts of around 20 to 25 mph will occur Friday and through the weekend before gusts up to 30 mph pick up early next week. CNN Meteorologist Briana Waxman contributed to this report.
