Two wildfires, one burning near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the other farther north on the Kaibab Plateau, have scorched over 70,000 acres of northern Arizona wildland, according to state and federal fire officials.

The Grand Canyon was formed with the shifting of tectonic plates, which lifted layers of rock into a high and relatively flat plateau, according to the park service. About 5 million to 6 million years ago, the Colorado River began to carve its way downward, slowly deepening and widening the gorge.