Threatened Andover homes safe, but grass fire still burning

Dozens of homes threatened by a grass fire in Andover over the weekend are safe, but the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says the fire may still pose some danger.

The fire started Sunday afternoon and threatened nearby residents for about four hours, according to DNR spokesman Dave Schuller.

"At about seven o'clock they had the running fire down, they had all the homes protected," Schuller said. "There is still going to be fire out in the fire area probably for the next couple of days because there's some pretty heavy fuels, and they're going to be have to be working on it to get those hot spots taken care of. So the fire is not completely out at this point."

Schuller said this morning that the fire danger is continuing across much of east-central Minnesota today.

"The predictions I have heard for this morning was for pretty good winds for the rest of the day, and still no rain in the forecast, which sets us up for more fire," Schuller said.

The area listed as abnormally dry by the National Weather Service in Minnesota doubled last week. Long range Forecasts say weather in the state could stay dry for another two weeks.