DULUTH – Northern Minnesota’s Greenwood fireplace was 80% contained Friday, because the Superior Nationwide Forest lifted fireplace restrictions for the whole forest, together with the Boundary Waters Canoe Space Wilderness.

A Friday flight over the fireplace confirmed standing water from the few inches of rain that fell over the drought-stricken space in current weeks, mentioned Val Cervenka, a spokeswoman for the workforce managing the fireplace.

Whereas the area stays traditionally dry, officers do not anticipate the fireplace — which not reveals any flames — to unfold, she mentioned. Nevertheless, a few of its perimeter is astride inaccessible wetlands, making it probably full containment will not come till snow falls, she added.

Final week crews continued to seek out and dig out scorching spots alongside the fireplace’s edge and take away fallen or standing lifeless timber, together with within the hard-hit McDougal Lakes space. A number of the uncontained sections in closely forested areas had been giving crews bother, mentioned Jim Grant, an operation part chief with the fireplace’s earlier incident administration workforce, at a public assembly Sept. 12 in Finland, Minn. (Every incident administration workforce works a two-week stint, and a brand new one took over Tuesday.)

A stretch of the fireplace’s southern border close to Greenwood Lake is reachable solely by boat or through a 4-mile trek on a snowmobile path, for instance, and a few distant areas haven’t any room to land a helicopter in an emergency.

The hearth, which began 5 weeks in the past, continues to smolder in ash pits buried inside peat bogs, mentioned Patrick Johnson, a fireplace conduct analyst for the Greenwood fireplace and a Superior Nationwide Forest worker.

“We will not discover all of them regardless of how a lot effort we put into it,” he mentioned on the assembly.

Work final week included sorting salvageable wooden and fixing broken roads.

Evacuation orders for the roughly 40 residences throughout the McDougal Lakes space had been lifted over the weekend, because the Lake County Sheriff’s Workplace issued safety passes to these property house owners.

The Superior Nationwide Forest is permitting campfires in designated grates within the BWCA and at rustic and backcountry campsites in different components of the nationwide forest.

Remember to totally extinguish campfires earlier than leaving them unattended, mentioned Chase Marshall, the U.S. Forest Service’s fireplace administration officer, in a information launch Friday.

“Whereas the window for fireplace danger is closing, it is not completely shut,” he mentioned.

Jana Hollingsworth • 218-508-2450