Two wildfires continue to burn near the Grand Canyon; the White Sage Fire and Dragon Bravo Fire. The latter blaze is responsible for burning down the historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the park’s North Rim.
A bipartisan group of Arizona elected officials has called for an investigation into what happened.
The Lodge had burned down once before — a kitchen fire in 1932 led to the lodge being rebuilt a few years later.
Davy Crockett, vice president of the Grand Canyon Historical Society, joined The Show to discuss.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: So what did this lodge mean to you? What does this lodge mean to you?
DAVY CROCKETT: Well, the North Rim is, is about 1000 feet or more higher than the South Rim, and so it's a very forested area and that lodge was really a mystical place of of peace that so many people who would enjoy, including the employees and also the visitors.
BRODIE: How are you feeling now, a few days after the lodge met its end?
CROCKETT: Very, very sad, it's it's, I was on the South Rim this weekend, for a meeting for our society, and I watched as the the fire was spreading, I, I couldn't sleep one night and the night it actually burned because I could see the fire just huge across the canyon and I worried all night.
BRODIE: I suspect you can't actually see it from the South Rim, but did you kind of have a gut feeling that something bad was happening?
CROCKETT: I did because I knew the approximate location of it. I've, I've hiked many times. I hiked across or run across the Grand Canyon many, many times and, and know, knew where the lodge was. And it, it seemed like the flames were higher than they were for normal trees.
BRODIE: For people like you who really love Grand Canyon National Park and are very familiar with the canyon, like, what has been the conversation there over the last couple of days about all this?
CROCKETT: Well, the conversation, the main conversation is, will they rebuild? And that's certainly the national park isn't, isn't concentrating on that right now, but, you know, they're trying to get the fire out and make sure things can be protected as much.
But in addition to the lodge burning down, about 70 structures, including three-fourths of the little historic cabins that surrounded the lodge have been burned down.
BRODIE: Would you like to see them rebuild the lodge and maybe the cabins as well?
CROCKETT: Certainly I would, as you mentioned that in 1932, the original one burned down, and they did rebuild this current lodge directly on the same location that the last one was, even using a lot of the same stone that was there for the original one.
What's really amazing about this lodge location is it's perched right on the rim, just hugging the rim, unlike on the, on the South Rim where there, the lodges are, are further away.
BRODIE: What would it take, do you think, to, to rebuild? I mean, is there enough of that same stone, for example, to rebuild it? What, do you think it would be possible to sort of recapture the style and the history of it?
CROCKETT: I believe so, when they did this second lodge, you know, they were conscious of, of fire danger, and so instead of using a lot of wood, they used far, far more stone to do it, and they used stone that was in quarries right, right there on the North Rim.
So the hope is, I mean, when they built the, the, the second one though, with the, the stone, it would fall down, so they had to actually take the stone out and then and then put it back in, and I think they can do that again.
BRODIE: What does all this mean for the North Rim? I mean, this is obviously a less populated part of Grand Canyon National Park, the place where people stay is no longer there. The government has closed the North Rim for the rest of the season. It of course, is not generally open during the winter.
What, what does the future of visitation to the North Rim look like in the near term, do you think?
CROCKETT: A big, a big impact. The Grand Canyon receives about 5 million visitors per year. And the North Rim since it's more remote, it gets about 10% of that.
So it's a more peaceful place, there's, there's less crowds there, but the lodge was the only place, the lodge and the, the cabins and the campgrounds the only place you could stay at the North Rim. So any facilities were, are much further away and, and they're being endangered by the other fire.
BRODIE: So, I mean, I would imagine that this sort of sets that back a little ways, like if there's really no place to stay, at least, you know, assuming that it won't get rebuilt before next summer, people probably aren't gonna really be able to go there in large numbers anytime soon.
CROCKETT: Probably not, because a lot of things were, were, were destroyed, including the water treatment plant, the gas station there, visitor center, ranger stations, employee housing. You know, all, so many things are gone that it certainly will take a lot of time.
Now the North Rim is, is a bigger area. There's other places to view the canyon on the North Rim, but you have to get that, get to them through dirt roads.
