Wildfire destroys a historic Grand Canyon lodge and other structures

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A fast-moving wildfire destroyed a historic lodge and dozens of other structures on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, forcing officials to close access to that area for the season, the park said Sunday.

The Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, was consumed by the flames, park Superintendent Ed Keable told park residents, staff and others in a meeting Sunday morning. He said the visitor center, the gas station, a waste water treatment plant, an administrative building and some employee housing were among the 50 to 80 structures lost. “Numerous” historic cabins in the area also were destroyed, the park said.

Two wildfires are burning at or near the North Rim, known as the White Sage Fire and the Dragon Bravo Fire. The latter is the one that impacted the lodge and other structures.

Started by lightning on July 4, the Dragon Bravo Fire was initially managed by authorities with a “confine and contain” strategy to clear fuel sources. They shifted to aggressive suppression a week later as it rapidly grew to 7.8 square miles (20 square kilometers) because of hot temperatures, low humidity and strong wind gusts, fire officials said.

No injuries have been reported.

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs called on the federal government late Sunday to investigate the National Park Service's response to the wildfire.

“They must first take aggressive action to end the wildfire and prevent further damage,” she said in a post on X. “But Arizonans deserve answers for how this fire was allowed to decimate the Grand Canyon National Park.”

Millions of people visit the park annually, with most going to the more popular South Rim. The North Rim is open seasonally. It was evacuated last Thursday because of wildfire, and will remain closed for the rest of the season, the park said in a statement.

Firefighters at the North Rim and hikers in the inner canyon were evacuated over the weekend. The park said along with the fire risk, they could potentially be exposed to chlorine gas after the treatment plant burned. Chlorine gas is heavier than air and can lead to blurred vision, irritation or respiratory problems if high amounts of it are breathed in, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rafters on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon also were told to bypass Phantom Ranch, which has a set of cabins and dormitories along the river.

The Grand Canyon Lodge was often the first prominent feature that visitors see, even before viewing the canyon. A highway ends at the lodge, which was known for its sloped roof, huge ponderosa beams and massive limestone facade. By walking across the lobby and descending a stairwell, visitors could get their first view of the Grand Canyon shining through windows across the “Sun Room.”

“It just feels like you’re a pioneer when you walk through there (the lodge),” said Tim Allen, a longtime resident of Flagstaff, Arizona, and yearly visitor to the Grand Canyon. “It really felt like you were in a time gone by.”

Allen said the North Rim felt special and more personal because of its remoteness and reduced number of tourists. He often spent time there camping and doing rim-to-rim hikes, trekking all the way to the bottom of the canyon and back out.

“It's heartbreaking,” he said of the destruction caused by the fire.

Caren Carney was staying at the lodge with her husband, parents and 12-year-old son when a park ranger knocked on their door Thursday and told them to evacuate. Carney’s parents first took her to the North Rim in the early 90s when she was 12, and the family decided to do the same with her son this year now that he was the same age. She was overjoyed to show her husband and son the serene beauty of the North Rim for the first time, and to bring her dad back to one of his favorite places in the world.

Carney said she was heartbroken Sunday to hear that such a “magical place” had burned down. After evacuating, the family from Georgia relocated to the South Rim to continue their vacation and they could see the blaze from across the canyon.

“We told my son while visiting that this is now a family tradition and he should bring his children when they are 12," Carney said. I hope there will be something as magnificent for them to see in the future, and I’m so glad we got to have one final look at it in the present before it was lost.”

Aramark, the company that operated the lodge, said all employees and guests were safely evacuated.

"As stewards of some our country’s most beloved national treasures, we are devastated by the loss," said spokesperson Debbie Albert.

An original lodge burned down from a kitchen fire in 1932, four years after construction was completed, according to the Grand Canyon Historical Society. The redesigned lodge using the original stonework opened in 1937.

Thomas Sulpizio, president of the historical society, said the lodge contained some valuable archives that he wasn't sure were saved.

The lobby also contained a famous 600-pound bronze statue of a donkey named “Brighty the Burro."

Meanwhile, officials reported progress in battling a second wildfire burning north of the Grand Canyon. Fire lines on the White Sage Fire that forced evacuations at the North Rim and in the community of Jacob Lake were holding, officials said. By Sunday afternoon the fire had charred 63 square miles (162 square kilometers) of terrain.

On the southern edge of the fire, hand crews and bulldozers were working uphill, and the spread of the blaze had been minimal.

But to the east and north, the fire has spread rapidly, with grasses and standing dead trees contributing to the fire’s intensity, officials said. The fire was pushing downhill toward the Vermilion Cliffs area, and crews were assessing opportunities to create buffer zones that help slow or halt the fire’s progress.

Elsewhere, one of several wildfires burning in Colorado that closed Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 260 miles (420 kilometers) southwest of Denver, has burned 5.6 square miles (14.5 square kilometers) and forced the evacuation of homes near the park. The fire was started by lightning on Thursday on the south rim of the park, a dramatic, deep gorge carved by the Gunnison River.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis issued a disaster declaration on Sunday because of it and other fires burning in western Colorado. His office said they were all started the same day by the same storm.

Another wildfire burning near the Colorado-Utah border near La Sal, Utah, also started Thursday and has burned around 14 square miles (36.3 square kilometers).

This story has been updated to correct spelling of superintendent’s last name to Keable, not Keeble, in the summary and second paragraph.

Ding reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Colleen Slevin in Denver, Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky, and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

The Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, Ariz., in June 2019. (AP Photo/Ryan Pearson)

This photo provided by National Park Service shows the charred remains of a building at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, in northern Arizona, on Sunday, July 13, 2025. (National Park Service via AP)

This photo provided by National Park Service shows the charred remains of a building at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, in northern Arizona, on Sunday, July 13, 2025. (National Park Service via AP)

This undated photo provided by the National Park Service shows Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, Ariz. (Michael Quinn/National Park Service via AP)

This undated photo provided by the National Park Service shows Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, Ariz. (Michael Quinn/National Park Service via AP)

This undated image provided by the National Park Service shows the entrance to the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim at Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. (Michael Quinn/National Park Service via AP)

In this photo provided by the National Park Service, smoke from wildfires settles over Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona on Friday, July 11, 2025. (Joelle Baird/Grand Canyon National Park)

This photo provided by the Bureau of Land Management shows aerial resources working to suppress White Sage wildfire burning north of Grand Canyon National Park in Ariz., on Thursday, July 10, 2025. (Bureau of Land Management, Arizona State Office via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea have seized another sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says has ties to Venezuela, part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country’s oil.

The U.S. Coast Guard boarded the tanker, named Veronica, early Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on social media. The ship had previously passed through Venezuelan waters and was operating in defiance of President Donald Trump’s "established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” she said.

U.S. Southern Command said Marines and sailors launched from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to take part in the operation alongside a Coast Guard tactical team, which Noem said conducted the boarding as in previous raids. The military said the ship was seized “without incident.”

Several U.S. government social media accounts posted brief videos that appeared to show various parts of the ship’s capture. Black-and-white footage showed at least four helicopters approaching the ship before hovering over the deck while armed troops dropped down by rope. At least nine people could be seen on the deck of the ship.

The Veronica is the sixth sanctioned tanker seized by U.S. forces as part of the effort by Trump’s administration to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products and the fourth since the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid almost two weeks ago.

The Veronica last transmitted its location on Jan. 3 as being at anchor off the coast of Aruba, just north of Venezuela’s main oil terminal. According to the data it transmitted at the time, the ship was partially filled with crude.

Days later, the Veronica became one of at least 16 tankers that left the Venezuelan coast in contravention of the quarantine that U.S. forces have set up to block sanctioned ships, according to Samir Madani, the co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship movements.

The ship is currently listed as flying the flag of Guyana and is considered part of the shadow fleet that moves cargoes of oil in violation of U.S. sanctions.

According to its registration data, the ship also has been known as the Gallileo, owned and managed by a company in Russia. In addition, a tanker with the same registration number previously sailed under the name Pegas and was sanctioned by the Treasury Department for being associated with a Russian company moving cargoes of illicit oil.

As with prior posts about such raids, Noem and the military framed the seizure as part of an effort to enforce the law. Noem argued that the multiple captures show that “there is no outrunning or escaping American justice.”

Speaking to reporters at the White House later Thursday, Noem declined to say how many sanctioned oil tankers the U.S. is tracking or whether the government is keeping tabs on freighters beyond the Caribbean Sea.

“I can’t speak to the specifics of the operation, although we are watching the entire shadow fleet and how they’re moving,” she told reporters.

But other officials in Trump's Republican administration have made clear they see the actions as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.

Trump met with executives from oil companies last week to discuss his goal of investing $100 billion in Venezuela to repair and upgrade its oil production and distribution. His administration has said it expects to sell at least 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil.

Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to show the Veronica is the fourth, not the third, tanker seized by U.S. forces since Maduro’s capture and the ship also has been known as the Gallileo, not the Galileo.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks with reporters at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a press conference, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at a news conference at Harry Reid International Airport, Nov. 22, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill, File)