Miyajima Ropeway

This guide to the Miyajima Ropeway centers on a fire on the morning of May 20, 2026, when the wooden hall sheltering a flame said to have burned continuously for twelve hundred years caught fire just above the ropeway's summit station. It follows the monk who grabbed the burning kettle mid-blaze, the tradition tracing that flame back to the monk Kukai around the year 806, and the unresolved question of what started the blaze, despite online rumors of arson. You'll also hear about the same hall's earlier fire in 2005 and its rebuild within a year. Stand at the top station and look up the trail toward the scorched ground and temporary shelter.