BWCA wildfire spreading quickly

(AP) - A wildfire in the northern Minnesota wilderness, fanned by dry winds and feasting on dead timber, has grown to more than 23 square miles in three days, puzzling officials who are trying to get a handle on the blaze.

"We know to expect the unexpected," said fire information officer Cynthia Sage.

The Cavity Lake Fire near the end of the Gunflint Trail is the largest in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area since 1999, when a fierce July 4 storm blew down millions of trees over 600 square miles of the lake-dotted wilderness.

"That wood that came down in the '99 storm has been drying like kindling or firewood for six years, so there's big trees out there that have a lot of fuel potential," Sage said Monday night.

Although there have been other fires since the blowdown, this fire is spreading much faster. Last year, it took two weeks for a fire in the blowdown area to spread to 5.5 miles, Sage said.

The Cavity Lake fire more than doubled in size on Monday, reaching more than four times the size of last year's fire.

"Picture a whole forest laying on the ground. That's essentially what it is," said Marty Christensen, a Forest Service official with the interagency fire team.

It was still too dangerous to send ground crews in to fight the blaze, Christensen said. No major injuries have been reported.

"Because the fuel we have is so intense, it's beyond control with hand crews, mechanized crews or aircraft. So really, the fire is doing what it wants to do," Christensen said. "There's not even fuel models to predict some of the things that can happen out there."

Still, water-scooping planes were dumping water on the flames every three minutes during part of the day.

The blaze spread more slowly after it reached an area that was purposely burned from 2001 to 2004 to get rid of some of the fuel created by the 1999 blowdown.

The BWCA, which covers one million acres along Minnesota's border with Canada, in what is known as the arrowhead region, contains hundreds of lakes and rivers and is a popular destination for campers and anglers.

Superior National Forest announced restrictions on campfires in the blowdown area. After midnight Tuesday, officials said campfires and wood- or charcoal-burning stoves will not be allowed in the restricted area, though gas or propane cook stoves will still be allowed.

While the blaze was very serious, it wasn't yet threatening any buildings or inhabited areas - yet.

However, crews began laying sprinkler hoses around buildings that may be in the fire's path, including the Tuscarosa Canoe Outfitters and Lodge, and some area residents in the expected fire path were being told to prepare for possible evacuation.

As many as 150 workers are in the BWCA to combat the fire, Sage said. About 60 workers were taken by boat to an island on Seagull Lake Monday and were to begin trying to contain the blaze on the ground Tuesday, she said.

The fire was first spotted Friday south of Seagull Lake.

Officials also were watching a separate fire, dubbed the Turtle Lake Fire, which had burned over nearly 2 square miles. That fire, about 20 miles away from the Cavity Lake blaze, was being used to burn up trees downed by the 1999 storm so the forest can be restored, said Carson Berglund, a spokesman with the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center.

"We want it to do what it's doing. So far it's not a control problem for us and we don't see it as such for the foreseeable future," he said.

Both fires were likely caused by lightning, Berglund said.

Several other new small fires also were burning both inside and outside the BWCA, all probably caused by lightning, he said.

The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the BWCA, has closed several portages and three entry points, along with Round Lake, Red Rock Lake and Seagull Lake. (Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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