Rain helps contain wildfires so more of the BWCA will reopen, but fires burn on
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Forest Service officials say that while progress is being made in containing the wildfires burning in northeastern Minnesota, allowing them to reopen more of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the fires will likely continue to burn long into the fall.
The incident command held a briefing on the wildfires burning in the Superior National Forest Tuesday to provide an update on the firefighting efforts. Officials said that fires have burned a total of 73,325 acres in both the U.S. and across the border in Canada, and the fires are now more than 50 percent contained.
“We’ve made good progress, have you know quite a bit of containment on these fires,” said Drew Stroberg, acting wildfire supervisor for the Superior National Forest. “But there are still about 378 miles of uncontained fire line out there, which is a lot of line.”
Stroberg said that more entry points into the Boundary Waters Area Canoe Wilderness near Ely will be reopening Wednesday morning. When they do, he said about two-thirds of the Boundary Waters will be open for day trips and some overnight camping in those areas. But he urges visitors to be diligent and responsible, and adhere to campfire restrictions, during their trips.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
“These fires are not, they’re not out by any stretch of the imagination,” Stroberg said. “We believe that those areas people can go in and have a high quality recreational experience. We do not see any sort of imminent threat for the next several weeks from these fires in those areas.”
Rain on Monday night helped the containment efforts, according to incident meteorologist Mike Kistner of the National Weather Service.
“We did get a pretty good amount of rainfall across the fire,” said Kistner. “We saw generally about three-quarters to an inch of rain, and then even some localized amounts over an inch of rain.”
Kistner said that the rainfall won’t completely put the fires out, but it does buy some time for fire suppression and containment efforts.
“When we get this rainfall over the area, what it is going to do is we get a nice break, five to 10 days,” Kistner said at the briefing. “So we get a little bit of time where it kind of knocks things down.”
But Kistner and other fire officials warned that the persistent dryness in the region, which is in a state of severe drought, could allow fires to flare up again and spread quickly.
“Just three to five days of dry weather in the areas that are dry and droughty is enough for the fire activity to pick up,” said William Glesener, wildfire operations supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “Because of the drought, inconsistent precipitation, and long stretches of dry, windy days, fires are staying active, even though they might not be showing a lot of external heat. They are very hard to extinguish and especially in the remote, rugged conditions that we have up here in the Boundary Waters.”
Class 3 fire restrictions are in effect in Lake, Cook and North St. Louis County. Glesener said those who are backpacking in remote areas and camping in the back country are not allowed to have campfires in those areas.
Some of the fires are burning in extremely remote wilderness areas, and firefighters are only able to get to them by canoe and float planes. Most of the forest service firefighters have come to Minnesota from other parts of the country and more than 400 of them have received special canoe-safety training so they can paddle into those areas to make fire containment lines.
The forest service said its firefighters rotate in and out on a two-week basis, and with several major wildfires burning in more densely populated areas out west, including in Spokane, Wash., there are some concerns that at least some of the personnel rotated out of battling the Minnesota fires won’t be replaced.
“There is a challenge for resources,” acknowledged Drew Stroberg of the forest service. “But our focus is here, and and on continuing to protect our communities, continuing to, you know, protect human life in this area.”
“Our commitment is that we're going to continue to work these fires, keep them as small as possible,” Stroberg added. “This is a marathon, though. These fires are going to be with us until snow falls.”
Across the country, the forest service said there are 99 uncontained large wildfires that are managed by 28 incident management teams and involving 29,000 personnel. About a thousand of those people are battling the Minnesota wildfires.
