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May 11, 2007 11:03 am US/Central

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Shifting Winds Prompt More Fire Evacuations

Slideshow: Gunflint Trail Wildfire

Along The Gunflint Trail, Minn. (AP) ― The phone lines went dead. The power went out. But Ted Young and his friends knew they had a little time before a sheriff's deputy would tell them to evacuate their bed and breakfast on a bay at Poplar Lake.

So, they ate their dinner of hot dogs, smoked fish and baked beans by lantern light as they talked about the wildfire that threatened 200 structures, including homes and businesses like Young's. They schemed about how they could stay put -- and talked more realistically about where they would end up sleeping Thursday night.

As expected, a deputy told them to leave. It was time for Young to take his record collection and go join his wife, Barbara, who had evacuated about an hour or so earlier with their dog.

"I know I can't come back for a while," Young said.

Shifting winds made the wildfire burning in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area more dangerous on Thursday, prompting more mandatory evacuations that eventually closed half of the 57-mile-long Gunflint Trail.

The increased evacuations began in the afternoon, when the winds began blowing from the northwest. It first included the area around the landmark Gunflint Lodge, which is just east of the scenic Gunflint Trail that leads from Grand Marais into the wilderness. Thursday evening, the evacuation was extended another 9 miles east to the area around the Poplar Lake Fire Hall.

"This has moved at an unprecedented rate of spread for a wildfire here," said Minnesota Interagency Fire spokesman Dewey Hanson.

Bill Paxton, a spokesman for the firefighting effort, said the fire was "challenging" the containment lines. "They're holding right now," he said. "We're having some difficulty holding them, but they're holding now."

The fire has already destroyed 45 structures and about 45 square miles had burned by Thursday. From the air, the torched land looked brown and barren. The fire also stretched several miles into Canada.

However, no one had been hurt since the fire started Saturday at a campsite on remote Ham Lake.

Paxton said the winds were gusting up to 20 miles an hour Thursday and the air remained hot and dry. Fire officials called Thursday a "red flag" day for fire danger.

"It has explosive potential -- probably as great as you'll ever see around here," Steve Raddatz, an operations sections chief on the fire, said in the morning.

By the afternoon, that seemed to be true, as anxious residents looked toward the northern sky, which turned a menacing slate blue color, much like that of an incoming thunderstorm. Between the dark cloud and the trees, a ribbon of glowing orange from the fire could be seen.

Gloria Johnson, 59, watched the sky darken while she was working at the Trail Center and Black Bear Bar and Restaurant, about midway down the Gunflint Trail.

"It's scary -- not just for myself, but this is Cook County's livelihood," she said. "We depend on the tourists in the summer."

A bit later, the Trail Center became a hurried scene as the owners were told they, too, might have to evacuate. Rather than wait for the mandatory order -- which eventually was given -- they began packing up, rushing to pull items from the walls, densely packed with everything from trophy fish to a moose head to antique hand saws.

"So if we happen to burn down, we can build it exactly the way it was," said Sarah Hamilton, one of the owners, hardly looking up as she packed the knickknacks -- many of them family heirlooms. "If it turns out not to burn, at least we'll get it really good and clean."

Family members and friends worked quickly, taking as much as they could.

Kary Graham, a niece of the owners, pulled an armadillo off a shelf and joked, "Hey, I saved the armadillo!" Moments later, she began tearing up over a wall plastered with snapshots. She was told not to save the pictures.

"This is the hardest part," she said, as she looked at the wall of photos.

She pointed to one picture and said, "That's when I first moved up here!" She pulled that one off the wall.

Thursday's weather was part of a trend since the fire first flared up at a campsite at remote Ham Lake on Saturday. The best chance of rain in the area wasn't forecast until Sunday.

Nearly 450 firefighters from across the country were on the scene, with more expected. They are supported by several helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

The fire is in a section of Minnesota that has been in a prolonged drought.

Late Thursday, another wildfire sparked to life. Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered two National Guard Blackhawk helicopters and crews to Cherry Township near Hibbing to help fight a 200-acre wildfire there.

St. Louis County sheriff's Sgt. Chuck Williams said the fire was out by midmorning Friday. No houses were burned, although a storage shed was destroyed. No one was hurt, and people who had been asked to leave their houses were back home.

The Weather Service said the fire danger in northern Minnesota would remain "very high to extreme" until significant rain falls on the area.