May 9, 2007 10:03 am US/Central
BWCA Fire Crosses Into Canada
Along the Gunflint Trail, Minn. (AP) ―
An elite team of firefighters from the western United States traveled to Minnesota Wednesday for the wildfire burning through the wilderness along the state's northeastern border and into Canada.
A "Type 1" management team is called in for the largest and most complex fires, often when multiple types of aircraft are involved and hundreds of firefighters are on the ground, according to the government National Wildfire Coordinating Board.
Carson Berglund, a spokesman for the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center, said the new team will be greeted with the same warm and dry weather that has help the fire grow to over 25 square miles since it was believed to have started at a remote campsite on Ham Lake on Saturday.
While officials were sticking with their official estimate of the fire's size, Berglund said they feel it's "substantially larger than that." He said the fire was burning in Canada on Wednesday morning.
The fire had destroyed around 40 structures along the scenic Gunflint Trail road by Tuesday, but Berglund said more have been damaged since then. He didn't have specifics.
The fire remained 5 percent contained, and there have been no reports of injuries, he said. An evacuation order for the northeast part of the Gunflint Trail remained in place.
The Gunflint Trail is a 57-mile dead-end two-lane highway leading from Grand Marais to the state-protected Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and other popular, remote vacation destinations. Ham Lake is about 31 miles northwest of Grand Marais.
Dick Birger, another spokesman with the Incident Management Team working on the blaze, said the fire has been especially tricky.
"They are all dangerous," Birger said. "This one is ... still very active. There's still a lot of heat within this area."
On Tuesday, firefighters began to bring residents up the Gunflint Trail into the fire zone to inspect their property. Then the wind shifted, and the fire flared back.
"We just got everyone out of there," said Gil Knight, a spokesman for the team managing the fire fight. "It's just way too dangerous."
Water-dropping aircraft attempted to beat back the new flames, which have destroyed structures ranging from sheds to multimillion-dollar lake homes. No one has been reported injured in the blaze.
Several new smoke plumes rising hundreds of feet into the air and pine trees going up in flames could be seen along the Gunflint Trail. Ashes fell from the sky at Gunflint Lake, and smoke turned the Tuesday evening sun into a pink orb that hung in the haze. Sprinklers could be seen dousing the rooftops of several houses and cabins.
Still, outfitters further down the trail were upbeat, saying they hadn't seen a decrease in bookings because of the fire.
"In the big picture of things, the Boundary Waters is a million acres," said David Seaton, owner of Hungry Jack Canoe Outfitters and the spokesman for the Gunflint Trail Association of outfitters and merchants. "This fire represents less than 2 percent of the Boundary Waters."
His business is 20 miles away from the fire.
"We have actually taken a lot of reservations from all over the country," Seaton said. "I had one guy call that said he wanted to make his reservation now, because he wanted us to know that he was keeping the faith."
And there's an elevated chance of more fires throughout the summer and fall.
Federal meteorologist Steve Marien, who makes fire predictions for the interagency fire community for an area that includes Minnesota, said a combustible mix of factors will remain at work in northern Minnesota.
There are still plenty of downed tress left over from a huge windstorm in 1999, despite controlled burns and a large fire at Cavity Lake in 2006. At the same time, northern Minnesota remains in a prolonged drought and warming trend.
"Until those (precipitation) deficits are evaluated a little bit more, any short-term period of warm and windy conditions are gong to create the large fire potential," Marien said.
The overall fire danger won't drop considerably until those blowdown trees rot further into the ground and the area gets enough rain or snow to overcome the drought, he said. There was no rain in the immediate forecast.
There are more than 4,500 square miles of protected wilderness in northeastern Minnesota.
More than 350 firefighters from across the country were on the scene Tuesday as the fire stood at 16,266 acres. More firefighters were pouring in, and about 500 were expected to eventually arrive on the scene.
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
