Thunderstorms that crossed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on Tuesday night and Wednesday produced lightning that sparked several new forest fires, but officials said they didn't offer enough rain to help snuff any blazes.
Dry conditions have led to a restriction on all fires in the BWCAW during the day. Campers can light fires only from 7 p.m. to midnight until further notice.
The U.S. Forest Service said the Cummings Lake fire, about 12 miles northwest of Ely, now sits at about 50 acres after more accurate GPS readings were used to determine the fire's perimeter. It was reported as 60 percent contained as of Wednesday night.
A new fire, about a quarter-acre in size, flared up between Moose Lake and Snowbank Lake northeast of Ely but was knocked down quickly by air drops of water.
Because the area of the small fire is still smoldering and in a densely packed area of dead vegetation from the 1999 blowdown storm, the Forest Service closed several area lakes to canoeists: Ensign, Vera, Trident, Frog, Splash, Ashigan, Missionary and all lakes in the Spider Primitive Management Area.
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The Snowbank Hiking Trail from Boot Lake and west to the trailhead was also closed.
Crews are evaluating the areas and will post the latest information at portages.
Some 18 personnel were on the ground Wednesday working to create a line around the Cummings Lake fire and had nearly half the fire encircled as of Wednesday afternoon.
The storms brought almost an inch of rain to areas near Cook and Orr, but little rain on the largest fire area.
Superior National Forest officials reported at least four other new fires smoking late Tuesday and Wednesday, sparked by lightning that came with little or no precipitation. So far, most of those fires remain small, with ground crews and aircraft responding quickly to douse them before they can grow.
One Michigan crew is in Minnesota helping with the Cummings Lake fire and with new fires as they start. Another crew from Medford, Ore., also is on the way to Minnesota to help, said Jean Goad, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center in Grand Rapids. Several Minnesota firefighters remain in western states battling fires, but as they return no new crews are being sent west so the state has an ample stable of firefighters and equipment to fight new fires here.
The National Weather Service in Duluth is forecasting cooler temperatures for the next week, with highs in the seasonal upper 60s and low 70s, which will help calm fire behavior compared to recent 80-degree days. But there still is little or no rainfall in the forecast for the next week.
Many of Minnesota's largest forest fires in the past two centuries have occurred in September and October, including the deadly Hinckley fire of 1894 and last September's Pagami Creek fire in the BWCAW, the largest in Minnesota since the Cloquet-Moose Lake series of fires that hit in October of 1918. The Baudette-Spooner fire struck in October of 1910.
