Although the smoke smell and haze which was prevalent throughout northern Illinois yesterday seems to have subsided, Wildfire Today has an interesting follow-up to the fire which has grown to over 100,000 acres and is now resulting in evacuations. An interesting note in the article mentions that the “… fire that started in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and was not suppressed for about two weeks …”
the largest fire in Minnesota since 1918. The Pagami Creek fire has burned 100,000 acres, according to the incident management team, and forced evacuations on the south and east sides of the fire. Scroll down to see maps of the fire.
It started from a lightning strike on August 18 and by August 30 had burned approximately 13 acres.
The staff at the BWCAW and the Superior National Forest decided to monitor it and allow natural processes to run their course. They conducted some firing operations, burning an additional 2,000 acres, to herd the fire away from populated areas on the north and west sides, but by last weekend it was obvious that they needed to suppress it.
Read the entire article HERE.
