Columnist Susan Snyder: Feelings in Zion smoldering

Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2001 | 8:34 a.m.

"It starts all over again when we tell people what happened. The public is outraged," said Jim Webster, chief ranger of Zion National Park in southern Utah.

It is outraged because Delicate Arch, one of Utah's most prominent and well-known natural features, likely will carry permanent scars from the September 2000 fires that federal officials say photographer Michael Fatali lit in attempt to capture an image he envisioned.

U.S. Attorney's Office officials in Salt Lake City on Friday filed seven charges against the 36-year-old man in connection with the incident and a similar one that happened at Horsehoof Arch in Utah's Canyonlands National Park four years ago.

Fatali, who is to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba Nov. 5, has a popular gallery in Springdale, Utah, just blocks from Zion's entrance. His photos have appeared in such magazines as Arizona Highways.

Federal officials say he was conducting a workshop for the magazine Sept. 18 and 19 last year when he lit two fires and instructed others to light a third under Delicate Arch, in order to illuminate the feature for a night photograph.

He built the fires with Duraflame logs, which melted into an oily, waxy mess as they burned and cooled, according to a release from Utah's U.S. Attorney's Office. Fatali also is accused of instructing workshop students to light a fire nearby using wood from the immediate area.

That fire "was still smoldering when rangers responded to the area the following day," the release says.

The goopy residue and flames marred the foundation of an ages-old sandstone monarch so well-known it appears on one of Utah's license plates. It belongs to anyone who has -- or has ever wanted to -- hike 1.5 miles along slickrock ledges to stand under its massive legs and wonder at the creative forces of water and wind.

This past weekend, however, visitors making that trek were greeted with a sign that explained a masonry restoration expert would be working under the arch and could not move for photographs, Ranger Webster said.

"This guy is working right where people are wanting to take pictures," Webster said after the first's days restoration was finished. "The report was that it wasn't coming up.

"Initially it (the scar) was very black," he added. "Our staff was able to get a lot of the stuff off. It still looked like a shadow where a shadow shouldn't be."

In a statement issued last year Fatali said he thought he had permission to light the fires, and he wasn't aware of any damages. He apologized and offered to clean up anything "that may have been caused by this unfortunate incident."

On his Internet website Fatali says, "To me, using nature's light is the best way to express the wonders of natural phenomena," and "It is this beauty of the natural world that connects us with the spirit of the land."

That spirit was broken under one of nature's most phenomenal wonders.

And as I said when I first wrote about this almost exactly one year ago, you should be angry.

This land is your land, no matter what image appears on your license plate.