The Bridge Hollow Fire

It began last Wednesday, when I was out with the veg crew.

All of our radios squawked…"Fire call center to Bryce Canyon Fire Chief…we have reports that, if the current conditions remain constant, a fire is headed in your direction and should reach the main park road in approximately 2 hours."

From that point on, for the next 5 days, the radio never went quiet. Not for more than a second.

The fire that began with one, single strike of lightning in Bridge Hollow, would burn continuously for over 5 days, scorching over 3000 acres of land in Bryce Canyon National Park and Dixie National Forest. With over 200 wildland firefighters on call, teams of resource and safety specialists from all over southern Utah, and, of course, the amazing team of people at Bryce Canyon National Park, this “incident” would require everyone’s best efforts to, not only manage the fire, but also keep the public’s (locals and visitors) safety and ease of mind as top priorities.

Just to give you a little bit more perspective, this smoke is about 14 miles away.

I attended the first fire briefing on Thursday morning. The fire had already burned 1500 acres. A plan had to be put into action, and quickly. The fire crew-chiefs would have a full plate of contradicting objectives; the national forest wanted to sustain and utilize the fire for resource benefit, but the national park wanted to go on full suppression, and they had a whole set of rules of what the firefighters could and couldn't do in the park due to impact levels on the park’s resources (falcon nests, archaeological sites, etc.). Thankfully we all reached a consensus and, although I didn’t experience the fire first hand, I believe the fire was managed fairly easily.

After the meeting, I was approached by our Chief of Interpretation and the Chief of Resources. They wanted to promote me to Public Information Officer (PIO) for the next few days. I was ecstatic. Not only would I be getting paid for a change, but I’d also be gaining some new experience (“It’s all about exposure to experience, and experiencing exposure,” that was my late grandfather Pops’s saying and my inspiration for the title of this blog and my own ambitious lifestyle).

I would be in charge of editing daily press releases and hand-delivering them to select people and businesses within a 50-mile radius. Now THIS was my style. I really enjoyed this job. Driving around, meeting new people and talking with them about the fire (or whatever else they wanted to chat about) was really fun.

The southern end of Bryce Canyon’s main road would be closed, restricting visitors from seeing 75% of the park. Fortunately our main attraction, the Bryce Amphitheater, would remain open to the park. The biggest challenge for our interpreters and administrators were the visitors that would constantly demand that their park entrance fee be refunded because they couldn’t see the whole park (even though about 60% of our visitors never spend more than 2 hours in the park, nonetheless get to see the whole thing).

When I wasn’t out working as the PIO, I was around the park looking for the best vantage points for pictures of the fire and smoke. At Fairyland Point, I would take the best panorama shot of the summer so far. I hope you like it!


The Bridge fire went down in history as the biggest fire Bryce Canyon National Park has ever seen. Teams of specialists are still coming in and out of the park for weeks at a time to analyze the affects the fire had on the local ecosystems.

I feel privileged to have witnessed and been a part of managing it.

What an amazing experience.