Wildfires have scorched parts of several states in the Western U.S. as firefighters continue to battle growing flames. CBS News' Jason Allen has the latest updates.

Grand Canyon National Park

Wildfires are actively burning across several western US states, with California experiencing some of the most severe outbreaks. The Gifford fire has consumed more than 72,000 acres and remains only three percent contained, despite ongoing efforts by fire crews. 

Firefighters are facing significant challenges due to difficult terrain, limited access, and extremely dry conditions, with rainfall at only half the usual levels. Authorities are deploying additional helicopters for aerial firefighting, but unpredictable winds and hot, dry weather continue to complicate containment efforts.

Several states scorched by wildfires in the West

Wildfires continue to burn across parts of the western US this morning. In California, fire crews are battling to get more than a dozen fires under control. The largest of these include the Gifford fire, and it's now burned more than 72,000 acres and is still only the three percent contained. CBS News correspondent Jason Allen joins us now once again from Santa Maria, California, near the fire zone. Good morning, Jason. Just how hard has the the fight been overnight into this morning? Errol, good morning. It's it's difficult, and especially with access on this fire. You know, firefighters felt like they made some good progress yesterday, and still this fire grew another seven or eight thousand acres. The the hard part here is you've got a highway behind me, right, but this just leads through a wilderness area and the fire burning on either side of it, so they're having to use a lot of bulldozers to get their way in there, and they're having to fight this from the air as well. To that point, they're bringing in more helicopters today to do more of those airdrops. One of the problems is, yeah, it can be quiet in these overnight and morning hours, right, but as the day heats up, the weather heats up, conditions start to change. I talked yesterday with Fleming Bertelsen. He's with the Forest Service here about that kind of unpredictability of the afternoon hours. It's hard to predict what the wind is going to do, and that's been the that with the fuels has been the primary driver. Yeah, and so these fuels that this is those areas that just hasn't burned in years. It's incredibly dry. They're only at about fifty percent of their regular rainfall here, Errol, and so these are things that have just been drying out for years and especially drying out here in the summer, and so when they catch, they catch very quickly and they go up very quickly, so firefighters have another difficult day ahead of them. They're expecting things to be hot again, dry again. They're trying to make progress on this fire while they can. Yeah, I hope they make some progress today. Jason Allen, thank you.

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