Dragon Bravo Fire, Arizona
At the time of this blog entry, the Dragon Bravo Fire burned 130,000 plus acres along the Grand Canyon National Park’s North Rim and is only ~13% contained. The fire initiated on 4 July 2025 and several structures along the North Rim, including the historic Grand Canyon Lodge, have already been destroyed. The cause of the fire was due to lightning. Prolonged hot, dry and windy conditions aided in the fire spread.
The high temporal resolution GOES ABI captured the rapid fire spread throughout the course of a week and half, from 24 July – 4 August 2025. Notice the active hotspots (i.e., white and red pixels) and the increased fire spread to the north.
GOES-18 ABI 3.9 um hourly observations from 0000Z, 24 July 2025 to 0000Z, 4 August 2025
VIIRS 3.7 um (I4) imagery zooms in on the finer details of the hotspots and the advancing fire perimeter during a similar time period. VIIRS observes these features at a high spatial resolution of 375-m compared to the coarser GOES 2-km resolution. The shortwave infrared imagery from VIIRS and GOES can be used in complement with one another during the day and night to observe fire hotspots, along with other thermal anomalies.
VIIRS 3.7 um (I4) observations from ~9Z, 24 July 2025 to ~9Z, 3 August 2025
Another way to view the Dragon Bravo Fire is from the VIIRS Day Fire RGB that utilizes three individual spectral bands (I4 – 3.7 um, I2 – 0.86 um, and I1 – 0.64 um) to detect fires, monitor vegetation changes and observe smoke. The RGB has the same 375-m spatial resolution and captures the active fires, burn scars and smoke produced from the Dragon Bravo Fire. Note, one of the limitations of the RGB is that the dataset can only be used during the daytime and is not available at night.
VIIRS Day Fire RGB observations from ~20Z, 24 July 2025, to 21Z, 3 August 2025