Dry, windy weather continued Thursday to vex firefighters on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, where the Dragon Bravo fire that destroyed the Grand Canyon Lodge grew by more than 6,000 acres in the past 24 hours.
Roughly 1,000 firefighters were battling the fire that was sparked by lightning on July 4 and making slow progress, with containment lines scratched around 26 percent of the fire, up from 18 percent two days earlier. And yet, while the fire's acreage was measured at 13,622 on Tuesday, it enlarged to 16,765 acres by Wednesday morning and to 23,082 acres by Thursday morning.
Along with dumping water on the fire from the sky with helicopters and water tankers, ground crews were busy setting up sprinkler systems to protect infrastructure, such as the North Rim entrance and the Kaibab Lodge just outside the national park. Four "super scooper" aircraft were making round trips to Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area to snag belly-fulls of water and then heading back to the North Rim to dump on the flames.
"Conditions will remain hot and dry with gusty southwest winds expected to reach 20-25 mph. Fire behavior will likely increase as fire weather conditions remain critical," the daily fire report stated.
The entire North Rim inside the national park is closed to the public, as are the following areas:
· North Kaibab Trail and South Kaibab Trail
· Bright Angel Trail below Havasupai Gardens. River exchanges are allowed to pass through this area at their discretion.
· Phantom Ranch and Bright Angel Campground
· River Trail between Pipe Creek and the South Kaibab
· Tonto East between Havasupai Gardens and Tip Off
· All backcountry routes and canyoneering routes stemming from the North or South Kaibab, or the Bright Angel Trail.
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