The ferocious Dragon Bravo fire was 29% contained as of Thursday morning, more than double from the day before.
That's rare good news since the fire broke out more than a month ago and challenged the more than 1,300 personnel currently battling the fire on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.
Stefan La-Sky, a public information officer for the team overseeing firefighting efforts, said the gains can be attributed to several factors.
“The weather did help a lot," La-Sky said during a phone call Thursday morning.
Specifically, higher humidity levels took some of the pressure off crews battling the blaze in what have been historically dry conditions.
La-Sky said the fire is also moving into areas where there is less dry vegetation and other fuel to feed the flames, including in the 2023 Kane Fire burn scar area. But he also noted that drier conditions were expected to return, with near-critical fire conditions later Thursday and Friday and winds predicted to gust up to 30 mph.
The daily fire update Thursday morning put the blaze's size at just over 132,000 acres, or about 200 square miles.
The Dragon Bravo was sparked by lightning on July 4 and tore through the park's North Rim facilities about a week later. It's one of about three dozen large wildfires burning in the West, with several in or near national parks.
Here's what else to know:
- The Bear Gulch Fire, which shut down a portion of Olympic National Park in Washington, has burned more than 5,100 acres so far. Rain through Thursday morning was expected to help temper the blaze, but warm weather was forecast to return.
- Some areas of Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park remain closed, including the South Rim and East Portal. Black Canyon's North Rim reopened last week. The blaze there, called the South Rim fire, was sparked by lightning on July 10 and burned more than 4,000 acres.
- Three fires were burning in Yellowstone National Park. The largest, the Ash fire, has burned about 26 acres.
- Officials at Mesa Verda National Park, also in Colorado, are keeping a close eye on the Waters Canyon fire burning about a mile from the park's southeastern edge. Visitors are advised to check the park's social media accounts and website for updates.
- Smoke from wildfires can travel hundreds of miles. Fires burning both in the United States and Canada may impact air quality in some national parks. Anyone planning to visit a park should check particulate pollution levels at AirNow.gov and the National Park Service air pollution monitoring site.
- Wildfires in the United States have blackened about 3.4 million acres of land so far this year, equivalent to about 5,300 square miles. That's below the year-to-date average of 4.1 million acres noted over the past 10 years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
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