The sweet smell of wood smoke and the beefy sound of propeller-driven airplanes hung in the air at the end of the Gunflint Trail on Sunday as crews maintained their attack on the Alpine Lake fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The fire, estimated at 650 acres, started fast Saturday but slowed to a crawl on Sunday thanks to light winds. U.S. Forest Service officials say the blaze could regain its strength if strong winds blow up.
The fire is burning about three miles from the nearest structures, which include cabins, homes, resorts, outfitters and campgrounds at the end of the Gunflint Trail on Saganaga and Sea Gull lakes.
Officials said there's been no need to consider an evacuation of the area. But Cook County Sheriff's Department and state emergency personnel are monitoring the situation.
No injuries from the fire had been reported Sunday.
As many as 80 well-trained wildland firefighters are expected to be on the scene today. Some may be sent into the fire area by boat and on foot to coordinate a ground assault with the many aircraft already working on the blaze.
If conditions are safe, crews will tote gas-powered pumps and fire hoses to suck water from lakes and creeks and form a line to stop the fire's spread. They would also help douse hot spots within the burned area and dig trenches to help contain the fire.
"It's been all an air show so far, but we're going to need bodies on the ground to get this thing out," said Gil Knight, spokesman for the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center. Knight is monitoring the fire from the command post at the Seagull Guard Station on the Gunflint Trail.
Firefighters were flying in Sunday night from West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana.
Twin-engine amphibious CL-215s and single-engine Beavers on floats could be seen dipping water out of Sea Gull Lake Sunday to drop on the fire in regular assaults, with just minutes between each drop. Thick smoke that hung close to the water early Sunday dispersed into a haze by afternoon when temperatures reached the upper 80s.
Three of the tankers combined to drop 193 loads of water on the fire on Sunday. Each load contains 1,400 gallons.
The fire covered an area more than two miles long and a half-mile wide. Fire experts hoped to knock the blaze down as much as possible Sunday while winds were light and before even hotter and drier conditions arrive today.
The forecast calls for only limited rain until Tuesday night, and even then it may fall short of the soaking rain needed to help put the fire out.
John Stegmeir, who is leading the team commanding the fire attack, described its progress Sunday as creeping, with no particular direction, due to the light and variable winds.
A few Forest Service personnel boated in to the fire area Sunday to assess the situation and update campers on the fire's progress. Air tankers continued their assault nearly all day, breaking only to return to Ely for fuel.
The fire started in an area of dry jack pine and is on the northern edge of the infamous 1999 blowdown area. That's where strong winds toppled millions of trees, creating unprecedented amounts of fuel for fires.
So far, however, the fire hasn't been unusually intense, and Forest Service and Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department officials say the blaze poses no immediate threat to people or property.
Lightning was listed Sunday as the cause of the fire.
The Forest Service has logged and burned thousands of acres of the blown-down area to create fire breaks should wildfires rage out of control.
In the six years since the blowdown, this is the largest fire to hit the BWCAW. No fires since the blowdown have become dangerous, and fire officials don't want this to be the first.
Combined with local, state and Forest Service fire truck crews already in place, firefighters say they can guard most structures in the area. Red Rock Fire, a private wildland firefighting company based in Tower, also had fire engines standing by.
In addition, state, federal and local officials have been preparing for just such a fire and have improved communications, evacuation plans and technical and tactical support all around the blowdown area.
"This is what we've been planning for and, so far, things are going pretty well," said Steve Jakala, a wildfire expert for the Superior National Forest.
No fire restrictions are in place, and canoeists continued to enter and leave the BWCAW without any problem Sunday, even within sight of smoke from the fire. Some local outfitters cringed at media coverage of the fire, saying customers from the Twin Cities were wondering if it was still safe to come.
By all accounts, so far it is.
"There's only a couple of places people can't go as of now," Knight said.
Bob Carity of Maple Grove, Minn., ended a four-day trip on Sea Gull Lake on Sunday morning after having watched the growing fire and the air show that followed.
"We were having lunch on Red Rock Lake when we noticed the smoke, and then the airplanes started coming in. We weren't very far away at all," Carity said.
"It was... thick jack pine and blowdown where it started," Carity said. "And it's really dry all over in there. There wasn't even any dew this morning."
The Alpine Lake fire was one of about a dozen that blew up on Saturday across northern Minnesota as a five-week stretch of below-average rainfall in many areas has sparked a late-summer fire hazard.
Most of the other fires never grew beyond a few acres before being contained, except for a blaze in the Solway-Pinewood area between Bagley and Bemidji. Firefighters and aircraft continued Sunday to fight that 50-acre fire, which was 80 percent contained, Bergerson said.
Reports of new wildfires to the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center have grown from about six a day two weeks ago to about 12 a day in the past week, said center spokeswoman Jean Bergerson.
The Alpine Lake fire is burning in nearly the same area as a 1976 fire and not far from the 1995 fire on Saganaga Lake. The 1995 fire burned 12,000 acres and took two weeks to extinguish, Bergerson said.
Forest ecologists say much of the BWCAW is prone to fires every few years that for centuries renewed the forest, but which now can threaten homes and businesses if left unchecked.
Fire officials couldn't estimate when the fire might be contained, but crews are expected to be on the scene for several days.
In addition to ground crews with shovels and water hoses, computer mapping equipment was on the way to enable fire planners to pinpoint the best routes for attacking the blaze.Duluth News Tribune
