Grand Canyon wildfire spreads, now only 9% contained

The Dragon Bravo Fire was at 26 percent containment Friday but grew over the weekend.

July 29, 2025

Gusts of dry air expanded the wildfire burning in the Grand Canyon National Park over the weekend, with the incident team meteorologist expressing hope Monday that rain later this week could help fight the blazes.

The Dragon Bravo Fire on Friday was considered to be at 26 percent containment, according to the federal government’s fire-tracking system. By Tuesday afternoon, the fire had grown to 71,000 acres and was considered 9 percent contained.

Officials said biomass in the pine forest and low humidity in the air around the Grand Canyon are driving the fire’s northward expansion, even as 1,000 fire response personnel deployed to the area for a full-suppression strategy.

Craig Daugherty, the operations chief for the Southwest Area Complex Incident Management Team 2, said in a briefing Monday that “dynamic fire days” witnessed over the weekend created “pretty serious fire growth."

The incident meteorologist at the scene, Shawn Smith, said that expected rainfall later in the week will hopefully aid in suppressing the fire, but the current below-average levels of moisture are fueling the fire’s expansion and making it more and more difficult for firefighters to battle the blazes.

“In the past five days, the weather balloon released out of the Flagstaff, Arizona, National Weather Service office has observed very dry air, in fact driest air in over 60 years,” Smith said. “This dry air, combined with very gusty southwest winds across the fire here, has resulted in some very large fire growth recently.”

The fire, sparked by a lightning strike on July 4, has reportedly burned down more than 70 buildings, including the historic Grand Canyon Lodge in the national park's North Rim.

Members of Congress and Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs have questioned the National Park Service's initial response to the fire, saying it appears to have been treated as a "controlled burn" before spreading about a week later. The Interior Department has defended its tactics and said critics are politicizing the wildfire.

"All wildfires on NPS land are managed for suppression," Interior spokesperson Elizabeth Peace said Tuesday. "Fire management decisions are made in real time, guided by local conditions, on-the-ground expertise and decades of fire science."

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter last week to President Donald Trump demanding answers for how Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have managed the fire.

Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego also wrote a letter on July 14 to Interior requesting more information around the handling of the fire.

Kelly’s office said in a statement to POLITICO’s E&E News that the senator “is committed to supporting recovery efforts from the fire and will work with the local community to help rebuild what’s been lost, including the North Rim lodge.”


By:  Avril Silva
Source: Politico Pro