Dragon Bravo

As I’m writing this, the Dragon Bravo fire that swept across the North Rim of the Grand Canyon starting in mid-July is 61 percent contained. It’s since destroyed around 145,000 acres, taking numerous structures with it. And as I happened across a blog post on the National Parks Conservancy Association’s website, already a couple weeks old by the time I stumbled upon it, I sifted through a familiar sequence of thoughts and feelings that seem to churn through my head by rote at the news of a wildfire. In my home state of Wisconsin, where fires are small and generally quickly managed, the urgency has never required me to really consider the true significance of events like these, but this time, I wanted to do exactly that.

Wisconsin is no stranger to historic wildfires—storm winds whipped the 1871 Peshtigo fire into a frenzy and the blaze completely wiped out two towns, killing an estimated 1,500 people and destroying around 400 square miles of forest. Today, Republicans in this state, along with others from Upper Midwest locations, are busy berating our northern neighbor in pointed and frankly naïve letters—it’s never the climate crisis; there’s always a liberal government to blame—about not battling Canada’s remote wildfires “properly.” It’s true that we’ve been under a haze and a few unhealthy air quality warnings during the past few summers, a trend that meteorologists attribute to low annual rainfall in the forested areas where the fires spread, plus the peaty ground the fires thrive in—even during the winter.

I don’t usually have reason to worry too much about wildfires in the Upper Midwest, let alone megafires that sweep through tens of thousands of acres. It crosses my mind when Pierce, a large company based near my hometown that builds fire trucks for departments around the country, test-drives an engine destined for Oregon (or somewhere) that resembles a Day-Glo yellow military vehicle with a serious lift kit. It’s not difficult to imagine the need to traverse mountains and rugged terrain where those vehicles are eventually delivered.

But I’m obviously not immune to the risk of fires and the snowball effect that they have on people’s lives. None of us are, really. That certainly goes for the Los Angeles wildfires in January of this year, which affected dozens of people I personally know, many of whom lost virtually everything and have had to rebuild from scratch. And images of the Dragon Bravo fire on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim strikes a similar tone, if not for the imminent danger to a large population of people, then its significant impact on iconic cultural spaces and the natural beauty of remote landscapes.

The first I heard of the Dragon Bravo fire was when it destroyed the storied North Rim Lodge, an 89-year old building that itself is the result of a rebuild when a fire four years after its construction leveled the original 1928 structure. It’s surrounded by 120 cabins, and the main lodge itself is constructed of native timber and stone, namely Kaibab limestone excavated from the canyon walls at Bright Angel Point, giving the lodge its signature rustic look. It offered incredible views of the canyon—the North Rim is about 1,000 feet higher than the more heavily touristed South Rim—and like the nostalgia-brimmed program of national park lodges around the nation (but especially in the West), it holds a special place in many travelers’ hearts and memories.

I’ve never been to the North Rim. I thought about heading there last summer when I drove through for a few days, but I didn’t quite get my supplies together right, and I’m sometimes too spontaneous of a camper to realize when I should have made reservations much earlier. But I’ve been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times, and one of my very favorite things to do is to wake up very early, even before the sun, and walk along the paths where—stunningly for a place that sees around five million visitors each year—I’ve often been able to experience something akin to having the place to myself. Just me and the ground squirrels and birds. It’s utterly magical. And I’m disappointed that I won’t ever be able to experience the North Rim Lodge, even though I’m sure it will be rebuilt. It’s just that the character of its century-old construction isn’t something that can simply be reinstated.

Losing cultural treasures is always dispiriting. One of the first times I was faced with this particular sensation was when I learned about the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. It made me sick to my stomach—and still does. But nature’s a different beast. There’s no one to blame. Of the thoughts that always seem to automatically filter through my mind when I hear of wildfire destruction, it goes something like: if only it had rained more; those poor animals; the climate crisis is real; nature is always in control. I can get a little nihilistic, even—what is material culture anyway? Does everything necessarily have to last forever? On some level, do we deserve it?

I don’t pretend to not feel immense sadness at the loss of treasured places. And simultaneously, I take comfort in the fact that these places are always there; they’ve only changed. And truly, what a terrific and formidable reminder of nature’s reign. It’s like the reminder from an airplane window of how small we each are in the grand scheme of things; this is a similar sensation. And admittedly, I’d likely feel the loss more strongly if I had visited the lodge before, but I don’t think it’s too much a stretch of the imagination to understand the feeling.

Perhaps it’s possible to value things more because they are gone. Perhaps we need those reminders, however painful, to grasp the much larger picture these events are part of. For my part, the loss only strengthens my respect for nature and especially the weather, along with my love for what cultural treasures in the Grand Canyon—and beyond—we are fortunate enough to still have. ✤

All images in the public domain, courtesy of the National Park Service.