Sen. Mark Kelly is one of several elected officials in Arizona to call for an investigation into the 11,000-acre Dragon Bravo Fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
He says despite the damage done by the blaze, letting some burn can be important to reduce risk.
Kelly fears the explosion of the Dragon Bravo Fire could reverse long-fought-for progress in the management of wildfire in the West.
“If you don't let some naturally occurring fires to happen, you wind up with a higher fuel load over years and years or decades. And then when you do have a fire, it can burn much hotter and be much more devastating,” Kelly says.
Kelly says fire managers could have made all the right decisions in handling the Dragon Bravo Fire before it destroyed 70 structures including the Grand Canyon Lodge.
And that’s why an investigation is critical.
“The investigation might come out and say, ‘Well, actually this was the right way to do it.’ And, you know, sometimes weather conditions change and there are unforeseeable things that happen. That's a possibility too. So, yeah, I think you always want to go with the science,” Kelly says. “The reason you have investigations, it's not to place blame. It's to change the operating procedures, the processes, the decision-making to make sure […] that set of circumstances doesn't happen again, so you can just do better.”
The Dragon Bravo Fire was sparked by lightning on July 4 and burned slowly for close to a week before winds whipped it into a several-thousand-acre blaze.
According to National Park Service officials, it was originally managed using what they call a ‘confine and contain’ strategy to allow for the natural role of fire while minimizing risks.
“All wildfires on NPS land are managed for suppression. In the case of the Dragon Bravo Fire, it exhibited low to moderate growth until July 11,” a NPS spokesperson said in a statement.
But they say rapidly evolving conditions and extreme weather were the primary causes of the fire’s sudden growth.
Critics like Governor Katie Hobbs question why managers allowed the fire to burn at all during the hottest and driest time of the year.
