The Dragon Bravo Fire, which had been about 20% contained, is now down to just 4% containment. What fueled the fire's sudden growth?

Grand Canyon National Park

A wildfire known as the Dragon Bravo fire is burning in Grand Canyon National Park and has expanded to over 94,000 acres. Containment has dropped from over 20% to just 4% within a 48-hour period, due to historically dry weather, low humidity, strong winds, and difficult terrain. 

More than 1,000 firefighters are involved in the effort, utilizing both ground crews and over a dozen aircraft for water drops. Firefighters are focusing on protecting lodges and other structures, and are working to move the fire into areas with less vegetation. Despite these efforts, the thick vegetation and challenging conditions have made containment difficult.

Wildfire burning in the Grand Canyon explodes in size

We first reported on this fire back on July 4th, the same day where we had the devastating flooding across parts of Texas. So in a way, it kind of got buried and in the lead of weather stories. But overall, as you were mentioning, normally there's a trend of how these wildfires go, but this one is not stuck to that trend. And there is a big challenges that we want to hear about here as the Dragon Bravo fire has grown to over 94,000 acres and containment went from over 20% unfortunately back down to 4% over a 48 hour window. Yeah, overall, the numbers have just get kept getting worse and worse here over the past couple of days. So joining us now with latest is Lisa Jennings, media lead for the Southwest Area Incident Management team. And Lisa, we understand every fire is different. You got some challenges with this one with the terrain, low humidity, strong wind. So where exactly is this fire burning and what are some of the main risks areas? This fire is historic not only because we're here at the Grand Canyon, but because we're facing day seven of historically dry weather, and that is causing extreme fire growth. That is very challenging for our firefighters on the ground. All right. So as mentioned, we're talking about containment has dropped. So what is making this fire so hard to control? Fire activity is a combination of weather, topography and fuels. And right now we have all three of those things working against us. As I mentioned, historically dry weather. We have really low humidity both during the day and overnight. We're also at the Grand Canyon. So if you think about the canyon here, it essentially makes its own weather both within the canyon and the drainages that come off of it. And that third piece is fuel, and that's very thick in this area. However, that's what our firefighters can work, and they have been putting in long hours on the ground doing great work trying to make containment lines to take away some of that vegetation and help contain this fire. And Lisa, you've been talking about how the winds and the dry weather are affecting this fire. Obviously really challenging terrain. I saw that there were over 1000 firefighters listed as involved with the effort there. So what kind of resources do they have? Are there airdrops involved? Are there smoke jumpers involved with this effort? Or is it mainly just being attacked from the ground? We have a lot of different types of firefighters helping us on this incident, including over a dozen aircraft working around the clock to provide water support by air. We also have different units on the ground. So your typical fire engines, which can provide water as well as as heavy equipment crews that are putting in those dozer lines and trying to essentially drive the fire into areas with less vegetation where we can be more successful in that containment. All right. So in addition to trying to funnel the fires away from that vegetation you were mentioning, what are firefighters doing right now? In addition to that, to help slow it down? Yeah. As I mentioned, this is really challenging terrain. So every night we look at that fire growth and have to reassess our strategies. We're working on holding the fire away, first of all, from any values at risk. There are some lodges in the area, and our containment efforts on that side have been very successful in keeping it out of those structures. We are also working at, as I mentioned, moving the fire into areas with lower vegetation. Those do add to fire growth, but right now it is just so thick. Even those water drops we're providing is not really quite making it through the canopy to the ground. All right. Lisa Jennings, media lead with the Southwest Area Incident Management team. We do appreciate your update and all that the crews there are doing to try to contain this large fire. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

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