Wildfire along Grand Canyon’s North Rim destroys historic lodge

A wildfire that destroyed a historic lodge and a visitors centre on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim grew rapidly more than a week after it began as firefighters pushed ahead with efforts to slow its spread.

Park officials have closed access for the rest of the year to the North Rim, a less popular and more isolated area of the park that draws only about 10% of the Grand Canyon’s millions of annual visitors.

The fire destroyed the Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park’s North Rim, along with cabins, employee housing and a waste water treatment plant, park superintendent Ed Keable said on Sunday.

From the air, plumes of black smoke could be seen rising above the canyon walls.

Firefighters at the North Rim and hikers in the inner canyon were evacuated during the weekend over concerns about the fire and potential exposure to chlorine gas after a treatment plant burned.

Rafters on the Colorado River, which snakes through the Grand Canyon, were told to bypass Phantom Ranch, an outpost of cabins and dormitories at the bottom of the canyon.

Arizona governor Katie Hobbs called for a federal investigation into the National Park Service’s decision not to first aggressively attack the fire, which was sparked by lightning July 4.

Authorities first used a “confine and contain” strategy by clearing fuel sources, but shifted to aggressive suppression a week later as the fire rapidly grew to 7.8 square miles because of hot temperatures, low humidity and strong wind gusts, fire officials said.

“Arizonans deserve answers for how this fire was allowed to decimate the Grand Canyon National Park,” the governor said in a social media post.

No injuries have been reported, but 50 to 80 structures have been lost, the park superintendent said.