Nov. 02--A wildfire covering about 200 acres in Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge north of Thief River Falls continues to burn, but firefighters are making "significant progress," refuge officials said this morning.
The smoke being produced as the so-called "Silo Fire" burns the duff layer, combined with the more stubborn peat smoke, continues to be the focus, as it has been the past 10 days. The fire, which is burning in the southwest corner of the refuge, is considered to be about 20 percent contained.
According to Lee Nelson, incident commander, firefighters are having their best success by thoroughly soaking smoldering peat pockets with water. As of Tuesday night, the 25 firefighters assigned to the site had used 48,310 gallons of water in the previous three days.
For a comparison that would roughly be the same as the carrying capacity of 96 city fire engines.
"That's a lot of water, being put on the heat sources very accurately," Nelson said in a news release. "Usually on wildland fires, when we call for a water drop from a heavy air tanker or helicopter, we are trying to put water on a relatively wide area like a long fire line or a group of torching trees.
"On this fire, we've learned to be very specific on our water application. Even then, we're needing to return later in the day and the next day to make sure the spot is cold."
The plans are to continue to apply massive amounts of water on the small areas of heat until they no longer are producing smoke.
For more information on the Silo Fire, go to InciWeb.org or the Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge website at http://midwest.fws.gov/Agassiz.
