Thick smoke and the beefy sound of big propellor-driven airplanes hung in the air at the end of the Gunflint Trail today as crews continued their attack on the Alpine Lake fire in the Boundary Waters.
The fire, estimated at close to 500 acres, slowed dramatically overnight but was beginning to show renewed signs of life this afternoon.
U.S. Forest Service crews hope a switch today in the wind direction, to light northeast breezes after Saturday's southwest winds, will keep the blaze down so aircraft can continue to drop water on its perimeter.
While four 20-person ground crews are en route to the Gunflint Trail if needed, the fire continues to be entirely battled from the air, with aircraft from the Forest Service, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Manitoba already having battled the blaze. Additional water-scooping airplanes were expected today from as far away as Colorado and North Carolina.
Amphibious CL-215s could be seen dipping water out of Seagull Lake to drop on the fire in constant assaults with just minutes between each drop.
Fire experts hope to knock the blaze down as much as possible today before strong southwest winds are expected to return Monday along with even hotter and drier conditions, said Patty Johnson, a fire expert for the Gunflint Ranger District of the Superior National Forest.
Johnson was coordinating efforts on the fire until a full team of fire command experts arrives later today. So far Sunday, Johnson said, the fire remains quiet. Some sparks have"spotted" little fires as far as a half-mile ahead of the main front, pilots reported, but only a few trees were seen flaming as of 9 a.m.
The burned area is about 2 miles long and a half-mile wide.
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 Seagull Lakes. So far, Johnson said, there has been no need to consider evacuating the area. But Cook County Sheriff's Department and state emergency personnel are monitoring the situation.
The fire started in an area of dry jackpine and is on the northern edge of the infamous 1999 blowdown area. That's where high winds toppled millions of trees, creating unprecedented amounts of fuel for fires to feed off.
So far, however, the fire hasn't raged in an unusual fashion and Forest Service and Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department officials say the blaze currently poses no threat to people or property.
The Forest Service has logged or burned thousands of acres of the blown-down forest in this area to create fire breaks should wildfires rage out of control. In the six years since the blowdown, however, no big fire has erupted and fire officials don't want this to be the first.
Since the 1999 blowdown, many properties in the area have installed sprinkler systems to water down houses and lodges to keep sparks from igniting buildings. Combined with local fire department and Forest Service fire truck crews already in place, firefighters say they can guard most structures in the area.
In addition, local officials have been planning for just such a fire and have bolstered communications, evacuation plans and support.
So far no fire restrictions are in place and canoeists continue to enter and leave the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Sunday without problem. Bob Carity of Maple Grove, Minn., ended a four-day trip on Seagull Lake this morning after having watched the growing fire and then then the aerial attack.
"We were having lunch on Red Rock Lake when we noticed the smoke, and the airplanes started coming in. We weren't very far away at all," Carity said.
He said there appeared to be no campgrounds in the area where the fire started and he doubted a campfire was the cause of the blaze. Though no cause has been determined, others have speculated that lightning last week may have left a tree smoldering until Saturday's winds kindled an actual fire.
"It was really thick jackpine 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 Minnesta as a five-week stretch of below-average rainfall has sparked a late-summer fire hazard in many areas. Most of the other fires never grew beyond a few acres before being contained, except for a blaze between Bagley and Bemidji that grew to about 100 acres.
Helicopters from the Minnesota National Guard are expected to drop water on that fire today so other firefighting aircraft can focus on the Alpine Lake Fire, which remained out of control.
Distributed by the Associated Press
