Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Apocalypse-like inferno More than 5,000 acres of the northern rim of Arizona has been torched by an apocalypse-like inferno, the Dragon Bravo Fire, which has scorched 5,006 acres and burned the Grand Canyon Lodge to the ground, preventing the North Rim from reopening during the entire 2025 tourist season. Fueled by dry conditions and scorching temperatures, the fire has left a scar that the landscape will never erase and has sparked a broader conversation about the increased threat wildfires pose to the country’s national parks.

It was more than the place everyone had gone to lay down and change for tomorrow, it was the one place anyone who walked out of that building in the morning to see the canyon had ever had anywhere in their Grand Canyon. The structure, built in 1928, was rebuilt after a fire in 1937. It wasn’t a South Rim, but its craggy, carved stone facade and views across the canyon were a very necessary part of the North Rim’s appeal, offering visitors views of the canyon and other canyon visitors, while also providing a relative peace and quiet compared to the South Rim.

Over the years, as the 74-room lodge had been remodeled and renovated, it not only lured travelers to 20th century guest rooms, but also charmed them into exclaiming over an old dining room, a gift shop of regional crafts and a small, cozy lounge with a view across the canyon. It was also a chance for visitors to let nature envelop them — the natural wonder that is the Grand Canyon, with a little more elbow room, a little less noise. The lodge’s loss is a bitter cultural blow for those who valued the place as part of America’s national park heritage.

That wildfire, which has scorched tens of thousands of acres since being spotted in early July 2025, roared through and pocketed at least 50 structures — cabins, service buildings and support infrastructure used to run the North Rim. The fire is the second major wildfire in the region, after the White Sage Fire, which has burned more than 40,000 acres. By mid-July 2025, neither of the fires was contained; efforts to protect the infrastructure and the wildlife were reported to be very challenging.

Fierce heat, dry air and strong winds have whipped the blaze, and created perilous conditions for firefighters, officials said. The fact that it can’t be contained, a rugged terrain and the lack of roads has only exacerbated things. Officials ordered mandatory evacuations around the North Rim, and crews were being rushed to make sure that residents, employees and tourists in the area were safe.

“Besides destruction of the built environment, the B-61 Dragon Bravo Fire had significant impact to the environment and human health. After the fire damaged a water-treatment plant at the North Rim, there were fears over a leak of poisonous gas up there; there would have been fears of exposure there even if the added menace of the gas spreading to the floor of the canyon weren’t present. That unsafe release resulted in closure of certain of the park’s most frequented hiking trails and inner-canyon trails that could have put thousands of the more than 4 million North Rim-Grand Canyon visitors in danger of the earth’s magnificence.

Fire fighters, too, have been humbled by the fire’s pattern — and how it made “safe” zones no longer safe — reflecting how capricious the modern wildfire has become in the new climate-altered era. The ferocity of those fires prompts some tough questions about the future of fire in an ecosystem that is ecologically so frail.

The Dragon Bravo Fire has renewed questions about whether fire fighting makes a difference. The governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, had previously called for an outside review of the fire response to answer why controlled burns were ignited during the driest part of the year. But federal officials, including a spokesman for the United States Department of the Interior, have strenuously rejected that assertion, saying that the experts who manage fires operate under strict, science-based standards aimed at trying to diminish risk from wildfires.

The battle over this fire highlights tensions that grow when humans fiddle with wildness on iconic turf like the Grand Canyon, where protecting people and the natural landscape means close coordination among more than a dozen federal, state and local agencies. It also underscores the difficulties to be faced in striving to strike a balance between protecting public lands and mitigating the fact that climate change is increasingly fueling more ferocious wildfires.

THE 2025 SEASON WILL BE THE LAST FOR NORTH RIM…If you have been planning to attend but haven’t, now is the time to take full advantage of your last opportunity in 2025. THE CLOSE: The EENND of the last traditional balzzoning Arizona dragin’ of the Frontier..will have.. effort to “capitalize” on the Acts of the last closing dated to the last shard of curtain, and the 4th dimetion of perception on what the 2025 North Rim season WILL be..is time…you get to see only the worth seeing in Arizona! The Grand Canyon National Park draws millions of visitors a year, but the narrower North Rim is the more distant, isolated side, a place of solitude. Now that the lodge is essentially history, travelers will have to rejigger their plans and head to the South Rim instead, or to one of the towns just outside the rim, where the options are thin. The tour operators, small businesses and tour guides that count on North Rim traffic will lose revenue.

Personal to anyone who has ever been North Rim, or read about the North Rim, the lodge is. It’s a sobering reminder of how vulnerable even the most manicured national parks are to the growing threat of wildfire driven by climate change.

The destruction synonymous of Notre-Dame is not simply a destroyed building; it is a monument, a national legacy, not of France, but of the west, and of real roots to a tradition, in a way say nothing of America’s tradition, the roots which so many liberals throw hate on so much history. Now, as the hard work of the rebuild and recovery starts, it is critical for the Grand Canyon community and its supporters to come together with the park management and share big successes to ease the heartbreak of wildfires at this national treasure so that generations to come will enjoy this natural wonder.

The destruction of the Grand Canyon Lodge should serve as a wake-up call to all parties — government, local stakeholders and the public — to unite to fight the increasing threat of wildfire in America’s national parks.