REGIONAL — Over 140 members of the Vermilion Lake Association attended the annual meeting and dinner on July 26 at Camp Vermilion. Informational displays highlighted the group’s work throughout the year, including the creation and maintenance of shore lunch sites (including a new one planned for the Vermilion Dam area), the annual loon count, the Lake Steward program, water quality testing, work on preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species into Lake Vermilion, and more. The group has been a leader in AIS prevention, and they noted that no new invasives have been found in Vermilion in the last 10 years.
Area partners from the St. Louis County Soil and Water Conservation District and the U.S. Forest Service offered information and handouts regarding shoreline restoration and reducing the risk of wildfire, as well as the services these groups can provide to area residents. The Cook Lions Club and the newly formed Tower-Soudan-Lake Vermilion Lions Club also were on hand to recruit new members and educate area residents about the volunteer work being done by the club.
Sunny Lucas, LaCroix District ranger, gave a presentation on the U.S. Forest Service’s Fuel Reduction Projects in the Lake Vermilion area.
“There are a lot of high risk areas on Vermilion,” she said.
The purpose of the program, she said, was to reduce wildfire hazards and their potential to damage properties. While this can’t prevent fires caused by lightning strikes, it can reduce threats to public safely and decrease the potential for damage to nearby properties.
They started by identifying the most high-risk areas, and then enacted a multi-year project to treat the forest understory by removing dead and potentially dangerous fuels. This includes cutting and piling both dead trees and balsam fir, and then coming back the next year to burn the piles, as well as piling and then crushing brush using heavy equipment in some areas that have a large amount of dead trees.
The plan calls for 2,658 acres of Forest Service lands to be cleared, including the creation of approximately 526 acres of “shaded fuel break” along of the edges of Forest Service and private lands, as well as “point source protection” around disbursed campsites and recreational day-use picnic areas.
Some of these areas may then be part of a prescribed burn after the initial treatment has been completed. The areas identified in this project are all along the northern shore of Lake Vermilion, stretching from Wolf Bay in the west to Mud Creek in the east.
The Forest Service has been working with a national group called Patriot Restoration Ops, a nonprofit that works across the county doing fire prevention work. This group brought in crews to do the cutting, brushing, and piling work this summer. The Forest Service will be continuing the work this fall, she said.
“All the sites we are treating are boat-access only,” Lucas said. The first sites treated were in Coffee Bay, Mattson Bay, and Sunset Bay, which included 200 acres.
“This is not easy work,” she said. “There are thousands of piles.”
Funding to continue this project next year is still being sought out. Lucas said they want to do more fuel reduction work in the Trout Lake portage area and in Rice Bay, off the Mud Creek Rd., which is a dead-end road, making evacuation during a fire more dangerous.
Learn more about the Vermilion Lake Assocation at www.vermilionlakeassociation.org.
The group’s mission it is to protect and improve Lake Vermilion. Membership is open to anyone who cares about Lake Vermilion, not just property owners.
Learn how to make your own property more fire resistant by contacting Gloria Erickson, St. Louis County firewise coordinator, at gloria@dovetailinc.org or 218-365-0878. Find a wealth of information about wildfire prevention and creating fire-adapted communities at www.minnesotafac.org.