Fire Alert: Closure Of Popular Wilderness Area Extended

U.S. Forest Service officials on Wednesday extended the closure of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness after Minnesota’s largest wildfire doubled in size.

The Greenwood Lake fire burning in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota grew to about 30 square miles (77 square kilometers) Monday, and four new smaller fires ignited within the BWCA.

By Wednesday, the size was estimated at 34 square miles (88 square kilometers).

Forest officials decided to keep the popular wilderness closed another week, to Sept. 3, dealing a blow to tourists who spent months planning their trips there and to the outfitters and other businesses serving the 1 million-acre Boundary Waters.

Fire fighters are exhausted and people’s nerves are frayed.

Business owners are wondering how they will make it through the winter without the income they were expecting during the last two weeks of August and potentially into September.

It isn’t all gloom and doom though. No lives have been lost, there have been no significant injuries and damage to private property has so far been relatively little.”

More than 400 crew members are fighting the forest fires.

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