Historically dry conditions have combined with gusty winds to make it harder for crews to get a handle on a wildfire burning along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, causing containment figures to plummet as the blaze nearly tripled in size in just a few days.

Both it and the Monroe Fire, burning further north near Monroe, Utah, are generating pyrocumulus clouds — sometimes called "fire clouds" — that form when air over a fire becomes superheated and rises in large, smoky columns. The massive clouds are visible for hundreds of miles and resemble the shape of an anvil.