REGIONAL— High winds and lightning associated with a strong line of thunderstorms that moved through the area Monday evening kept emergency responders busy in the aftermath.
Lightning struck a large story-and-a-half garage located on a high bluff above the Pike River Flowage in Vermilion Lake Township shortly after 9 p.m., sparking a smoky blaze that kept several area fire departments busy until the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
The fire appears to have started when a powerful bolt of lightning struck the building’s metal roof, which ignited rafters and tongue-and-groove paneling on the finished ceiling. The smoldering fire proved difficult for firefighters to access and manpower was limited initially, which made it difficult to send firefighters inside to attack the fire. The garage itself was difficult to access via a long, narrow, and occasionally steep driveway that offered little turnaround space at the end for larger trucks.
Firefighters from Vermilion Lake, Tower, Greenwood, Pike-Sandy, and Cook all responded to the scene, as did the Tower ambulance, the St. Louis County Rescue Squad and St. Louis County Sheriff’s deputies.
Many of the responding firefighters had just come off an earlier call of a submerged boat on Lake Vermilion, near McKinley Park. That call had initially reported an individual in the water without a life jacket, but responders never did locate a victim.
A nearby resident had used a jet ski to get to the boat and tow it to a nearby island, and had reported that the boat’s ignition key was turned off, suggesting that it may have simply broken free of its mooring during the storm.
Incident commander Matt Tuchel said searchers used the side-scan sonar on the Greenwood rescue boat to search for a body but never located anyone. The St. Louis County Rescue Squad took part in the search as well and also came up empty. Searchers tried to make contact with the suspected owners of the boat but were unable to do so.
Emergency responders from Tower and Breitung, Greenwood, St. Louis County Rescue, the Tower ambulance, county deputies, and state patrol all took part in the search.
Meanwhile, responders from the Pike-Sandy and Embarrass fire departments were deployed for a downed powerline, which forced the temporary closure of Hwy. 21 until a utility crew could make it to the scene to deactivate the line.