(Photo credit: Dawn Ohmes. Additional interesting photos, including the one above, in two galleries here.)
The Cavity Lake fire in the BWCA has grown to over 20,000 acres as of this evening. No evacuations have been ordered yet and the US Forest Service is beefing up it's resources to fight the fire. There are now 215 firefighters from across the US and an expert "Type 1" team is coming in to assume command. Smoke from the fire is noticeable as far as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, about 120 miles away.
20,000 acres is not huge as forest fires go. What worries me and a lot of people is illustrated in the graphic to the left. That wide swath in orange is the area affected by a major storm in 1999 that downed millions of trees in the area. NOAA has a great report describing the weather phenomenon here. Average fuel loads for the affected areas were measured at 60 tons per acre afterward, which is a lot of dead wood. The Forest Service has done some prescribed burns to reduce the risk and it's hoped that the fire will hit those areas and be reduced enough to be able to knock it down. High winds and continued dry weather could spread it beyond those areas quickly. The potential for a huge firestorm of historic proportions exists and is what everyone fears.
I've canoed a lot of those lakes and camped on Gabimichigami and Jasper. It was a beautiful area. I haven't been back to that part of the BWCA in a while and I hate to think about the changes that nature has wrought, first by storm and now by fire. Well, nature's prerogative I guess.
The heavy fuel loads in the area, while naturally caused, are certainly not normal. They need some luck and they need to get on top of this fire...soon. If they do, it will be a good thing in the long run. I don't want to think about the if they don't.
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