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Fire crews are making progress controlling wildfires burning north of Duluth and in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, but they’re being tested by hot, dry, windy conditions that could cause the smoldering blazes to flare up. 

There are still 235 firefighters on the ground battling the Jenkins Creek Fire, which has consumed about 16,000 acres of forest near Hoyt Lakes, and the much smaller Horse River Fire, which has burned 13 acres in a remote area of the Boundary Waters. 

The Jenkins Creek Fire is 94 percent contained, as crews continue the slow, methodical work of finding and snuffing out hot spots within the vast area of the fire. 

The Horse River Fire is still completely uncontained. “But by and large, that fire has been creeping along the ground. It's fairly quiet. The crews are working it aggressively,” said fire information officer Clark McCreedy, a member of the National Incident Management Organization managing the two fires. 

On the Jenkins Creek Fire, crews are flying drones equipped with infrared cameras at night, to locate heat signatures within the burn area. Then, during the day, crews use GPS coordinates from the drones to find and extinguish the hot spots. 

McCreedy calls them “seek and destroy” missions. 

“It's wonderfully efficient. It increases and enhances the safety of those crews, when we can immediately direct them to a point on the map where we believe we've got a source of heat,” he explained. 

But it’s tedious work that’s been ongoing for the past several days. That’s partly because the fire is burning in a thick layer of duff — a layer of partly decayed organic matter such as pine needles, tree litter and other dried vegetation — on the forest floor. 

“It’s not so much that the fire is burning outward, but burning what we refer to as burning downward, maybe in a downed tree or stump,” McCreedy said. 

“So it's somewhat hidden until the weather conditions are conducive to waking that hot spot up, and then we're able to detect it.”

Sunday night crews found about a dozen hotspots. Crews will continue to fly drones, find hot spots, and send crews out to snuff them out, until the blaze is completely contained. 

“It’s not a tremendous number of spots, but it's something that we have to repeat to make certain that we secure this fire,” said McCreedy. 

Meanwhile, about two dozen firefighters have paddled into the Horse River Fire burning about a mile south of the Canadian border in the BWCAW. 

For those crews, it’s a more labor intensive method of finding hot spots without the benefit of drones. 

“They space themselves apart, and they very methodically work across the landscape to try to detect heat sources,” said McCreedy. 

Those firefighters are members of Wildland Fire Modules, trained to live and work in remote areas. They paddled into the fire, and helicopters dropped in sling loads of food and gear. 

The Horse River Fire has so far burned slowly along the duff layer in the ground. But McCreedy says crews are cautious, because low relative humidity and high winds could “set the stage for waking up some of those hot spots.” 

McCreedy said he expects to see some containment on the Horse River Fire in the next few days. 

Firefighting crews could be helped out by rain, as thunderstorms are in the forecast for Monday night. But storms present a danger as well, as fire officials say the Horse River fire was ignited by lightning.

Meanwhile officials encourage the public to be aware of the critical fire danger. “Exercise some caution out in the woods,” McCreedy said. 

Dan Kraker

Author

Crews in northern Minnesota have made progress controlling wildfires burning north of Duluth and in the Boundary Waters. But they'll be tested by extreme fire conditions before thunderstorms arrive. 

An aerial view of smoke rising from a fire in a forest

Hot, windy weather testing wildfire crews in northern Minnesota

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