Fire progress allows partial BWCAW reopening

REGIONAL- Improving wildfire conditions have allowed the reopening of a significant portion of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and eased evacuation restrictions in northern St. Louis County, although active fires and road closures continue to limit access in some areas.
The Superior National Forest reopened 41 BWCAW entry points for day and overnight use on Thursday, July 30. The entry points cover about 432,500 acres, or 39 percent of the 1.098-million-acre wilderness.
Trout Lake, the only St. Louis County entry point included in this phase, reopened for motorized day use. Motorized day use also resumed on Seagull and Saganaga lakes in Cook County.
All other BWCAW entry points remain closed. Permits for those entry points have been canceled through Monday, Aug. 3. Because conditions can change quickly, visitors should confirm that their entry point is open before beginning a trip.
The Thursday opening marked the second phase of the Forest Service’s gradual restoration of access following the closure of the entire BWCAW on July 14. Selected Cook County entry points reopened for day use on Monday.
Areas that remain closed are still affected by active fires, smoke and ongoing firefighting operations. Crews must also remove hazardous burned trees and inspect campsites, latrines, and other infrastructure before additional areas can reopen.
Meanwhile, evacuation restrictions have eased across northern St. Louis County.
Zones 200 and 201 near the Camp Fire were downgraded from “Go” to “Set” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, allowing property owners to return. The Cloquet Line road closure through the two zones was also lifted.
Residents returning to areas in “Set” status should remain prepared to evacuate on short notice if conditions change. Firefighters have placed hoses, sprinklers, pumps, water tanks and other equipment around some properties, and officials said that equipment should be left in place.
The Echo Lake Campground and its amenities are fully accessible, although the campground remains subject to Superior National Forest fire restrictions. The Echo Trail road closure has been moved east to Forest Road 200. Forest Road 199 remains closed.
The latest changes follow a broader rollback of evacuation restrictions Sunday. Most remaining “Go” zones moved to “Set,” allowing property owners to return with access restrictions. Areas previously in “Set” moved to “Ready,” while zones that had been in “Ready” status were removed from the evacuation map.
Zone 100 along the Echo Trail remains in “Go” status. Fire burned through the area, and crews continue removing damaged trees that could fall.
The Echo Trail also remains closed daily from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. between Forest Road 200 and just west of the western Moose Loop entrance, allowing firefighters and equipment to work safely in the area. Property owners accessing surrounding areas should approach from the side nearest their property.
Current evacuation zones and road closures are available on the county’s Ready, Set, Go map at https://sheriff-slcgis.hub.arcgis.com/.
The restored access follows several days of moderated fire behavior and extensive suppression work, although multiple fires remain active and officials caution that conditions could change.
Officials provided a closer look at the work behind those improvements during a community update Monday at Ely Memorial High School. The presentation focused on the July Lightning Incident and did not include the Little Knife Fire.
Tom Hall, Superior National Forest agency administrator, said the Forest Service and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources remain in unified command and intend to fully suppress the fires.
“We are fully suppressing these fires going forward,” Hall said. “I know there were some questions of, ‘Are you just going to leave those out and let them burn?’ That is not the intent.”
As of Tuesday, the July Lightning Incident fires covered 64,054 acres in the United States and another 8,443 acres in Canada, with 999 personnel assigned. The separately managed Little Knife Fire was estimated at 4,958 acres, with 128 personnel assigned.
Hall said firefighters have made significant progress, helped by recent rain and moderated fire behavior. He cautioned, however, that containment is only one step toward bringing the fires under control.
The Southern Area Complex Incident Management Team was scheduled to transition to another complex incident management team this week. Hall said officials remain committed to securing the personnel and equipment needed, although intense fire activity elsewhere in the country has created significant competition for resources.
Shane Sturgill, operations section chief for the Southern Area team, said crews are beginning to wind down operations on about a dozen smaller fires and move toward repairing damage caused by suppression work. Crews remain positioned to respond to new fires, including delayed starts that can emerge several days after a lightning strike.
Work continues on the larger Sioux, Bear Trap, Camp, and Thumb fires. Sturgill said the Camp Fire was looking good Monday, with crews finding relatively little remaining heat, but substantial work remains elsewhere.
“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done before we feel that these fires are going to be really in a good place,” Sturgill said. “There’s still a lot of heat out here, and some of these fires are really severe, really hot.”
Recent rain and cloud cover have allowed firefighters to work closer to fire perimeters that had previously been too dangerous to approach. Crews have built containment lines and are working inward from the southern ends and along the flanks of the fires to locate and extinguish remaining heat.
A major operation continues along the Echo Trail, where crews are creating a shaded fuel break extending approximately 60 to 100 feet from the road in places. Removing brush and other lower-level fuels reduces the chance that fire will climb into the tree canopy and send embers across the road.
Sturgill said just under 1,000 structures had been documented as receiving an assessment or some form of protection. Firefighters have installed pumps, hoses, sprinklers, and portable water tanks around homes and cabins, equipment that will remain in place as a precaution.
Aircraft have played a major role in the response. As of Monday, they had delivered 2.907 million gallons of water and 120,400 gallons of fire retardant during 575 flight hours.
“That’s a huge amount,” Sturgill said. “That’s a lot of workload. That’s a lot of strain. That’s a lot of risk.”
Art Gonzales, fire behavior analyst for the Southern Area team, used photographs to demonstrate why the fires remain active even when little smoke is visible. Miles of perimeter contain fallen trees, dense brush, burning roots, and deep pockets of heat that firefighters must reach with chainsaws, hose lines, and hand tools.
In some locations, fire has burned through dry organic material as much as 30 inches deep, while heat also persists in roots and toppled root balls. Rain may dampen the surface without penetrating deeply enough to extinguish those pockets.
“That heat source is going to stay there for days and days and days, and eventually you’re going to hit a drying trend,” Gonzales said. “And this is no different than a lightning strike. Eventually, those pockets of heat are going to want to move and start to burn available fuels.”
Gonzales said the landscape within the mapped fire perimeters did not burn uniformly. Photographs showed a mosaic of severely burned forest, green trees, wetlands, and areas that escaped the fire entirely. Windborne embers, including burning birch bark, helped the fires cross roads and water during their rapid early spread.
Hall said officials will continue evaluating BWCAW closures and other restrictions daily. While access is expanding in areas away from the fires, he said crews still face a lengthy effort to bring the remaining fires under control.
“These fires are probably going to have smoke out on that landscape for a really long time,” Hall said. “We want to make sure that everybody is aware of that and that we are still dedicated to making sure that we maintain that containment and that control, so that we can get to calling these fires out.”