Dunlap fire burns near East Kings Canyon Road, prompts road closure

A half-acre brush fire in Dunlap closed Kings Canyon Road between Dunlap Road and Todd Eymann Road as crews rushed Air Attack 652, fixed-wing air tankers and a helicopter to the 39600 block of East Kings Canyon Road. The Dunlap Fire was burning through heavy brush and grass on the Fresno County foothills side of the corridor Friday afternoon, June 26, 2026.

Crews first found the fire burning uphill in heavy brush at about 20 by 30 feet. By about 4:10 p.m., it had grown to between a quarter-acre and a half-acre, with Incident Command saying it had the potential to reach 10 to 20 acres if it kept moving through the brush. Fire officials later said the blaze remained about a half-acre with a slow to moderate rate of spread.

The aerial response shifted as the incident stabilized. Fixed-wing air tankers were later released from the fire, but a helicopter remained assigned to help crews keep the flames from pushing farther upslope near East Kings Canyon Road. The fire was burning on private land, and the reported size was about 0.3 acres in the area near Dunlap.

No injuries were reported in the available updates, and the cause was not immediately available. For foothill residents watching the corridor, the immediate questions were whether Kings Canyon Road would stay closed and whether the fire would continue to throw smoke across the area as crews worked the heavy brush along the road.

Evacuation orders and warnings can be checked in real time through the Fresno County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office public fire mapping system, which lets residents enter an address and see whether a zone is under an evacuation order or evacuation warning. In a community where dry brush and narrow roads can turn a small ignition into a fast-moving access problem, that map is the quickest way to track whether the fire’s footprint starts pressing into nearby homes and driveways.