Hot, dry weather and wildfire smoke are elevating ground-level ozone across most of Minnesota today.

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Wildfires in northeastern Minnesota exploded in size overnight. Two large wildfires in the region are still uncontained. The biggest is the Camp House fire, which has spread over 12,000 acres. That’s about the size of the entire city of Winona. 

Just 13 miles north of that fire, another fire, dubbed the Jenkins Creek fire, has burnt 6,800 acres. The burnt area is about the size of the city of Golden Valley. 

 in the region. On Tuesday morning, St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said some people who did not evacuate are unaccounted for.  

Northeast Minnesota wildfires have burned thousands of acres, dozens of buildings

 "Their houses have been lost, so we need to determine where they are,” Ramsay said. “We are hoping that they evacuated, but this is a new phase of this incident, where we are, we are working on determining the location of people, where they're at and if they're safe."

Leanne Langeberg works with the Minnesota Interagency Fire Center. She joined MPR News host Nina Moini with the latest.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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Wildfires in northeastern Minnesota exploded in size overnight. Two of the fires have more than doubled in size in less than 24 hours.

Live, down to earth, unscripted interviews that aim to connect, inform and entertain. Real people share real stories with Nina Moini. It’s journalism that doesn’t take itself too seriously and puts people first.

Minnesota wildfires: More than 20,000 acres of land, dozens of homes burned

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