Boundary Waters wildfires could smolder until snow falls

MINNEAPOLIS — You don’t just put out a forest fire.

Or at least, humans don’t. Once forest fires reach the scale of those burning in and around the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — reaching temperatures of up to 1,500 degrees — the only fire extinguisher is Mother Nature.

And experts say Mother Nature might not be up to this task until the snow smothers the blazes.

“It’s way beyond the ability of firefighting crews to suppress,” said Lee Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Forest Ecology and an expert on the fire ecology of northern Minnesota forests.

Frelich said the swaths of woods that are burning are mostly evergreen, specifically fir and spruce that form the backbone of the boreal forest. They’ve been baked to a tinder by the dry heat wave, creating “just the right or just the wrong configuration, depending on your point of view,” he said.

“Boreal conifer fuel types are among the most flammable in the world — and among the most intense when they burn," he said in a phone interview Tuesday. “So many tons of combustible fuel per acre ... a lot of boreal forest fires simply can’t be suppressed.”

The only thing that could put out the fires quickly would be a deluge.

“It would take a high-intensity thunderstorm that drops 2 to 3 inches of rain, but those kinds of storms are hit and miss, and unlikely to hit all the fires. A quarter inch or so ... might slow it down but it won’t stop it,” Frelich said.

In a Monday news conference, Drew Stroberg, acting supervisor for the Superior National Forest, put it simply.

“In all likelihood, the only thing that will put that out is snow,” he said of the largest fires.

Gov. Tim Walz convened a meeting of state officials Wednesday morning to vote to extend the peacetime emergency he declared just days ago. The move includes use of the National Guard into September, suggesting officials are preparing for a potentially monthslong struggle.

Ryan Miller, who teaches about natural resources and wildfire management at Minnesota North College’s Ely campus, had the same assessment, especially for the fires that are deeper in the federally designated wilderness. Those fires are too remote for firefighters to attack with traditional means of containment — and too dangerous.

A former wildland firefighter, he also is on standby for the Forest Service as an engine boss if new fires flare up in the Ely area.

Miller said the Thumb Fire, for example, north of Ely and now spreading across the border into Canada, is among the largest and too remote for sending in firefighting teams. Aircraft are dropping water on the blaze. It was 14,500 acres Wednesday morning, according to the Watch Duty app.

The Superior National Forest’s fire management officer painted the same picture at Monday’s news conference. He said fire crew safety also is at risk.

“It’s not feasible to really insert our people at this time [on certain remote fires],” said Nick Petrack of the U.S. Forest Service.

The Forest Service and its firefighting partners could change tactics and ramp up fire suppression if there are “values at risk,” Miller said, such as cabins and private land, power lines, roads and more.

Officials said Tuesday they planned to muster equipment to attempt to slow and contain the Camp Fire, which had burned more than 2,800 acres as of Tuesday afternoon following a rapid expansion overnight and prompted the evacuation of homes, cabins and resorts along a 15-mile stretch of the Fernberg Road east of Ely.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no chemical retardants had been dumped on any of the fires, but they were available for aircraft in the event of “extreme fire behavior directly threatening nearby public, communities, and structures,” said Karen Harrison, wildfire prevention specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Fires are a natural part of the North Woods’ ecology, and there can be practical benefits to letting them burn.

If the fires aren’t threatening the public, property and infrastructure, Miller said, “it’s a better decision to let them burn and clean up some of the fuel that needs to be cleaned up. We’re going to have healthier forests. We’re going to be able to manage wildfires better.”

Still, Miller warned that, collectively, there might be too many wildfires burning across the Superior National Forest to consider the environmental upsides of letting some of them blaze on.

Shifting winds, a concern Tuesday ahead of evacuation orders, might call for ramped-up efforts to contain and extinguish all of them if resources are available, he said. Wherever they are.

“It’s really tough. And it’s tough to make that call,” Miller said. “We like to let fires burn in the wilderness areas if we can, but there are a lot of factors that might push you toward suppression.”

Wildfires don’t need to be fully extinguished, just defanged. A slow-burning, isolated fire can smolder for months in the backwoods without menacing anyone.

Frelich said it will likely take a combination of guile and good fortune for the outlook to change. “You hope for some rain or a period of really high dew points; maybe the fire moving into a swampy area is on your side. It’s very much that type of logistical game.”