Grand Canyon blaze shows how managing a fire can go suddenly sideways

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — U.S. land managers are racing the clock as hotter, drier weather raises the risk of wildfires in the nation's overgrown forests with each passing year.

One tool is to use the flames from lightning-sparked wildfires when conditions allow or to plan prescribed fires for other times of the year to clear out dense vegetation as a way to limit future risks.

Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona for decades has been a leader at using fire to make the ecosystem more resilient. A lightning-sparked fire along the North Rim that started July 4 presented an opportunity for fire to play its natural role.

After a week conditions quickly deteriorated. Wind-whipped flames rushed toward the iconic Grand Canyon Lodge and the surrounding historic cabins. Many were reduced to rubble and ash.

It's not the first time firefighters have been on the losing end of trying to wrangle the forces of nature.

Still, experts say fire is a critical land management tool, pointing to countless examples where the work has paid off.

''We focus so much on the fires that go bad and almost nothing on the 99% plus that do great work,'' said Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science and forest policy at the University of California, Berkeley. ''Unless we get the forests in a more resilient condition with low fire hazards, we will be chasing our tails forever.''

Searching for new tools

On the North Rim, managers working the Dragon Bravo Fire say crews had constructed containment lines and were prepared for more defensive maneuvers before conditions rapidly changed.

Uncharacteristically strong winds pushed the flames past multiple containment lines, prompting mandatory evacuations for remaining North Rim residents.

Crews in New Mexico also were forced to change their strategy in battling a blaze burning in the Santa Fe National Forest after a spot fire was discovered beyond containment lines. Ranchers there shared pictures of dead cattle on charred grazing allotments, criticizing officials for not putting out the flames sooner.

Experts agree there's always room for improvement when it comes to managing wildfires and planning for prescribed fires, especially as technology improves to help fire managers predict what the flames might do.

University of Utah atmospheric scientist Derek Mallia is among those working on new forecasting tools. He's tracking fires in Utah and Arizona in preparation for a project next year that will focus on pyrocumulonimbus clouds, or those towering thunderstorms that sometimes form above wildfires.

Mallia said fire forecasting hasn't advanced as quickly as tools for other severe events like tornados and hurricanes. That's partly because fires happen on a finer scale, making the work more difficult. Managers also have to account for the legacy of built-up fuels in the forests and the compounding factor of climate change, he said.

For example, he said fires are burning hotter at night than they used to.

''That used to be a time of the day where there was a good opportunity to kind of jump on a fire, get it contained and make a lot of meaningful progress,'' he said. ''That's a lot more difficult now.''

Researchers also are trying to better understand how fires affect weather patterns. Mallia explained that fires are part of a more complex feedback loop that makes forecasting even more challenging.

Still, the biggest issue is the condition of the forests and their susceptibility to high severity wildfire, said Stephens, the California professor.

Andi Thode, a professor of fire ecology and management at Northern Arizona University and the lead at the Southwest Fire Science Consortium, agreed. She said using a lightning-sparked fire or taking years to plan a prescribe burn is a matter of deferred risk for fire managers.

''Do you want to take your risk now with a lightning ignition that seems to be functioning in the way that you want it to with weather predictions that are not too bad? Or do you want to push that risk back to later in the worst time of the year?'' she said. ''Fire managers are always juggling this now.''

Lessons already learned

For Native Americans, fire has long been a part of life and crucial for forest health. Westward settlement all but eradicated those attitudes until ecologists ignited a shift in the way policymakers thought about fire.

The first wilderness fire management program was established in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks more than a half-century ago, as policies shifted from suppression to management. Other parks followed, with thousands of lightning-sparked fires being allowed to burn under carefully monitored conditions in dozens of parks across the U.S.

But there have been costly lessons, including at Bandelier National Monument in northern New Mexico, where a prescribed fire was set in the spring of 2000 to treat 2 square miles (5.18 square kilometers) of dense forest.

Strong winds, dry conditions and insufficient resources contributed to the destruction of homes as the fire ballooned to nearly 75 square miles (194.25 square kilometers). Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the nations' premier nuclear weapons labs and the birthplace of the atomic bomb, also closed.

The Cerro Grande Fire forever changed the landscape around Los Alamos, prompted congressional inquiries, led to a host of recommendations from nonpartisan government watchdogs and formed the basis of new training programs.

Changing conditions

It's not that the lessons faded from memory, but the circumstances are more dire with a drier landscape across much of the U.S. West.

That was the case in 2022, when the U.S. Forest Service forged ahead with a pair of prescribed burning operations in New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains as pressure mounted to address the wildfire threat.

Outdated models and miscalculations by managers resulted in what was the largest blaze in New Mexico's recorded history. Rural communities were uprooted and the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire wasn't contained for four months.

During the conflagration, the Forest Service put on hold its prescribed fire program and conducted a lengthy review that resulted in numerous reforms. Congress approved billions in recovery dollars, with FEMA paying out about $2.6 billion so far.

A 2024 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office noted 43 prescribed fire projects between 2012 and 2021 out of 50,000 prescribed fire projects. That included blazes in national forests in more than a dozen states — from the California-Nevada border to Utah, New Mexico, Idaho, North Carolina and Arkansas.

The Forest Service alone ignites about 4,500 prescribed fires each year, with the agency saying most are successful. But support wavers each time a fire escapes, like in New Mexico and now with the lightning-sparked fire at the Grand Canyon.

Thode said fire managers weigh many variables when making decisions — from wind speed and topography to the dryness of the fuels and moisture deficits within the atmosphere.

''There's a lot of science that goes behind what the folks are doing on the ground to manage these ecosystems,'' she said.