ENTS: I just survived an extremely exciting 4 day canoe trip in boreal forests of the Boundary Waters Wilderness around Seagull Lake, MN. I went with a writer and photographer from Backpacker Magazine to work on a story about global warming in boreal forests, and we did get that task done. However, it was the unexpected event that stole the show. May 07, 2007 Around noon on Saturday we noticed a plume of smoke to the south of Seagull Lake, and with the continuation of last year's drought, dryness of conifer foliage during May due to cold ground inhibiting water uptake and intense sunlight evaporating water from the top of the trees, and southeast winds of >30 mph, it quickly bloomed into a major forest fire. After visiting the 2002 prescribed burn that turned Three Mile Island into canyons resembling Utah (by removing the vegetation so you can see the rock formations), where we saw a moose climbing the pink granite hills, the ancient cedars of the north shore of the island, we made a trip across the lake to a campsite on a peninsula we thought would provide a good refuge from the waves. Winds in excess of 30 mph blew for 72 hours, making the trip across the large lake rather dicey, since ice out was only 3 days earlier and the water was 34 degrees. If you capsize in such water at mid lake, you die from hypothermia before any chance of reaching shore. Waves were hitting with only 2 inches to spare at the bow of the canoe. I did take one spill into the lake at the shore because I slipped while entering the canoe, but only when in up to the waist, and went numb in a few seconds. After a suitable period of recovery, we continued and reached the Seagull Palisades, where we were pinned in by waves for the next two days. By this time, the fire had become a roaring out of control monster, and our campsite was filled with smoke almost the whole time, from which there was no escape, since the winds would not let us go anywhere. Water bombers were active throughout the day, and forest Service monitoring planes flew over and confirmed out position--we were the only party in the wilderness (who else would go in three days after ice-out in high winds?). We knew that the lake and burns during 2002 and 2006 blocked the path of the fire to our location, so it would not reach us other than with the smoke. However, Sunday night, we noticed an orange glow in the east, which meant the fire had made its way around the east end of Seagull Lake, and could possibly move to our area. There was so much light that we could hike in the forest at Midnight without flashlights, even though we were 4 miles from the fires. A hike to the top of the palisades revealed flames hundreds of feet high and large orange balls of fire progressing rapidly northward. This morning the winds ended, and we finally made a run for the wilderness exit. As we approached the edge of the wilderness we saw that jack pine, red pine, white pine, black spruce and white cedar forests on many islands and the mainland were toasted to the blackness of charcoal. Is was obvious that Wilderness Canoe Base, our base station for research trips into the wilderness had burned. When we reached the parking lot, two men from the Forest Service were waiting for us with orders to see that my party got safely out of the wilderness to Gunflint Lodge, were a command center has been set up and many fire managers and reporters from several TV and radio stations were waiting to talk with me. The pilot of the plane that checked our position relative to the fire was also there to shake my hand. The entire north end of the Gunflint Trail is blackened, although many wilderness outfitters buildings survived due to the Firewise campaign and actions they had taken to protect their property over the last several years. Seagull outfitters and Voyageurs Canoe Outfitters, the two outfitters we use most often survived, although their trees were burned. Our cars were parked in their lot and were covered with ash and thousands of singed black spruce needles, but other wise undamaged even though trees burned 20 feet away. At this point the Ham Lake fire has burned about 16,000 acres, and is thought to have started from an escaped campfire. The north end of the Gunflint Trail is closed until further notice. Who ever started the fire is big trouble... Lee

Fire Information

• http://www.boundarywatersblog.com/?item=ham-lake-fire-on-the-gunflint-trail 
• http://www.inciweb.org/ 
• http://www.boreal.org 
• http://www.hamlakefire.com/ 
• http://bwca.cc/bwcafire/ 

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