MN wildfires update: 25 fires burning across total landscape

[00:00:00]Good afternoon. Um, we are up at the Ele Rers office, our Kushweed District RERS office and for our daily up or not daily but our um update for today. Last time we did this was on Friday and um so we have sent out our daily update this morning and um we're at about 63,000 acres in the United States and an additional 8,400 acres in Canada at this time. Um there's about total of 780 personnel on the fires and um we have three new fire starts were detected yesterday with firefighters responding to all new starts. Um the public is being asked to support firefighters and public safety by adhering to evacuations, adhering to closures and fire restrictions.

[00:00:55]Um we really are expressing our need for people to restrain refrain from flying drones um and aircraft in those areas.

[00:01:10]fires reported on today may change as some fires have merged and have been in patrol status.

[00:01:19]So, with our agenda today, we have several different speakers and I'm going to turn this over to our first speaker and he can introduce himself and we'll get this moving. Thanks.

[00:01:38]Good afternoon. My name is Shane Sturggil. I'm operations chief for the Southern Area Team 1. Uh on Friday of last week, uh Southern Area team came in to uh take command control of the fire.

[00:01:50]Uh we were given 15 fires across the landscape. Uh we're now seeing a lot of those resources that we requested starting to arrive to help do our our efforts on taking care of these fires within the landscape. Some of the fires to the to the far west are looking in really good shape. Uh we have some good control lines around those. Continue to use resources to mop up and patrol those fires. Those are some of the smaller fires, but still apparently uh you know still of interest. We want to make sure that those stay where they need to stay.

[00:02:25]Uh moving over to the west with some of our larger uh fires is, you know, with the on the footprint um that's on the landscape. Uh so we're looking uh within those areas. We have a lot of structures. We're doing structure assessment and structure protection methods, which means we're locating these structures, identifying needs, and most of those structures are within along the Echo Trail. Uh we're working methodically from the Echo Trail south, identifying structures, placing pumps, equipment to bring that moisture within around those structures to help put that extra protection measure within those structures. Also with that, we are looking at doing prep on a lot of of Echo Trail. Echo Trail is a long corridor. Most of the fire perimeter, the footprint is north uh of Echo Trail and that's where we want to keep it. We do have one section south of Echo Trail that we have a lot of resources on. They are continuing to build line, do improvements on mop up and continue to monitor that situation. Uh moving across the landscape, uh we have several uh with the campfire, we have several areas in there that has a lot of structures.

[00:03:38]Also looking at major um infrastructure such as a hydro uh power plant. uh making sure that we have prep measures that's needed within that area to safely secure that uh power corridor. Um we have a lot of aviation resources that's able to assist us with water drops and like they said we've had a few uh initial starts uh probably from the lightning that happened on Friday. We expect more of that throughout this operational shift. Um if you guys look outside, you know, you see increased winds. That's definitely a danger uh for these fires to to try to stand up and move. So, we want to make sure that we're vigilant on what we're what we're looking at with our controls on our lines. Make sure they're staying in place. I want to bring up, you know, a couple things on the evacuation stuff.

[00:04:30]Uh with the with the ready and the set, I would ask that folks start thinking uh have a plan in place. Think about what you what you would want to take if you have to evacuate. Um, you not saying that's happening, but be be ahead of the game. Uh, make sure that you're taking care of what you need uh within within your homes. And that way if if there is a need to evacuate, you're you've got your what you need to to make that happen. Think about where you're going to go, how you're going to get there.

[00:05:00]Those are very important. You don't want to be waiting till the last minute to be making those decisions. Be pre-planning.

[00:05:07]That's what we're asking. Um, you're going to see a lot of firefighters within the communities. Um, if you h if you want to ask questions, feel free to ask questions of those folks. They have a lot of the knowledge on the fire ground. Um, they're there to support the communities and this is what we're here to do. Uh, we want to make sure that we keep folks safe. That is priority number one, life and property. Um, so thank you for your time today and I'll turn it over to the next speaker.

[00:05:42]Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for joining us and giving us the opportunity to speak. Uh my name is Nick Petre. I'm the Superior Chipa National Forest fire staff officer. Um and I just kind of want to elaborate a little bit on what the team did as far as fire activity in particular to the east zone of our Spear National Forest as you move towards Grand Marray and the initial attack activity. So, uh, as of this morning, um, we have a national incident management organization team in charge of the Little Knife Fire. Uh, they are looking at, um, some strategic planning and, uh, trying to figure out the best way that that we can, uh, take direct suppression strategies on that fire. Um, it's it's it is a challenging fire just like all of these, it's located, uh, within the wilderness. Uh, we do have evacuation set up if we need to go any further than that. Um that particular fire we received from Canada. Um we work very closely with our Canadian partners uh Canadian partners. Uh we have meetings uh daily at 10:00 to discuss uh any kind of strategies that the United States andor Canada uh may be looking at implementing. Um that team is uh very involved. They're just uh probably two days in. So we expect some uh planning developing quickly out of that. As far as uh initial attack activity goes, uh we're still under some very challenging conditions in regards to fire suppression. Uh we work very closely with the Southern CINT um along with our partners and the N and the National Incident Management Organization team to ensure that we have the capacity and capability to take on any new starts. Um, we kind of have to divide out in those duties since we are all actively involved in working on the ongoing fires and taking direct suppression strategies on any new fires.

[00:07:29]The forest has received quite a bit of lightning in the last few days. Uh with the smoke that's sort of cleared out and our aircraft being able to do reconnaissance, uh we're using all our technology partners, aerial surveillance in order to identify any new starts and prioritize those with the fire staff that we have on the forest. Um it could be a challenging day for us, but we do have resources dedicated to that mission to try to keep any fire um as small as we can in conjunction with that team.

[00:08:00]Thanks for all your support. We appreciate it.

[00:08:06]We're just going to try to fix the noise situation for those online by just shutting these doors really quickly.

[00:08:15]>> Thank you.

[00:08:26]>> Thank you for bearing with us on the technical uh aspect of closing the garage doors. I'm Tom Hall. the agency administrator for the Forest Service. Uh for the Forest Service updates, really I want to say thank you to all the firefighters and all the great work that they're doing out on the fire line, whether that's here in Elely, uh over in the Cook area or in the Grand Marray area as they're in the Boundary Waters.

[00:08:48]Uh the firefighters are really the ones that are doing all the great work. Uh we did bring in uh some additional support.

[00:08:56]uh that includes the complex incident management team, southern area CINT1 and we have the national incident management organization. All of those are under a unified command between uh the state DNR and the forest service. Uh they have taken command of their their delegated fires and are helping to support our firefighters be successful out on the ground. Updates for the Boundary Waters closure. Uh closure is still in place for the entire Boundary Waters. We have canceled permits through Friday. Uh and at this time we are assessing opportunities uh to reduce the closure in those areas uh that make the most sense. Uh right now we don't have a timing of exactly what that'll look like or when that will occur. Uh but that is something that we're working on presently knowing that those those cancellizations through Friday sort of give us an initial clock of when we might try to make a new decision uh going into this next weekend. Thank you.

[00:10:01]>> Good afternoon. My name is Kurt Westerman and I am the agency administrator for Minnesota DNR. Uh I'm here to provide an update on burning restrictions. As of noon today, Monday, uh DNR has elevated the burning restrictions within Cook Lake, North St. Louis, Cooching counties, as well as a small portion of Itasa County to what we call our level four burning restrictions. Some of the changes that take place at at level four is no campfires are allowed and that includes on private property. It's kind of a quintessential Minnesota thing in the summertime to be hanging out around a campfire. Um given the conditions, the resources that are deployed and the conditions going forward, uh in order to protect life and property and to retain those firefighting assets where they are, we need to be able to control the controllables and limit the number of new starts that we have some control over. Obviously, we heard others talk about the lightning that has come through and new starts that come from that. Those we can't control, but these other um the reason for these burning restrictions are to control some of these other ones. So again, the big one is is no campfires. Um only gas or propane stoves can be used at campsites and or in the back country. So again, no campfires. And the only place that uh charcoal fires would be allowed would be in a device that's designed for charcoal fires primarily, you know, a grill or something similar. And it has to be associated with an occupied um home, cabin, or resort. So those are the those primary restrictions. In addition, there are some restrictions as it relates to uh acetylene torches and welding and flame producing equipment is prohibited in the vicinity of combustible vegetation. And it was uh just a reminder, it was I believe present at uh burning restriction level three, but no fireworks are allowed outside of a municipality. Um, that's a continuation, but just uh to reiterate that that would be another potential human source. Uh, any additional information that you would like to find, the DNR uh burning restrictions website will have maps associated that lay out the different restrictions for where a a person lives or recreates to find out what those restrictions are. Thank you.

[00:12:36]Good afternoon. Carrie Flegel, National Weather Service incident meteorologist, here to talk to you about what's happened not only in the last 24 hours weather-wise, but give you an idea of what we're expecting in the next week.

[00:12:49]So, we did have storms develop mainly west and northwest of our fires of the July uh lightning incident. As they developed, they produced a few more lightning strikes. And then as they moved towards the arrowhead of Minnesota, it was quite a few lightning strikes. And uh totally over the fire about 60 lightning strikes. And if you include the Arrowhead of Minnesota and portions of southern Ontario, we are on the order of about 600. So as uh as you guys know, it only takes about one lightning strike to start a fire. So definitely we're monitoring where these things have happened and the fortunately we're in a different place than what we were a week week and a half ago. Not only did we have our first rain about a half an inch to over an inch over the the July lightning incident, but even with our lightning that occurred last night, rainfall totals were about a a quarter to a quarter to a half an inch.

[00:13:48]Those higher amounts were over the eastern parts of the fire, mainly in the Ferbert Fernberg area. So, a little bit of rain fell with that. As we definitely noticed today, it was a change day. We have the wind to deal with. We have not had that wind over the last week, week and a half, but we have had a little bit of moisture. So, beneficial moisture, but we increased the wind. Winds today primarily out of a westerly direction.

[00:14:15]and uh those have been on the order of 22 to 35 mph. The strongest winds right now are over Cook. Those winds will continue through the daytime hours.

[00:14:26]Expect them to diminish only slightly overnight tonight and ramp back up tomorrow. The winds tomorrow are going to be out of the northnorwest as we do have a secondary cold front coming through. Not only is that secondary cold front going to bring that wind shift for winds out of the northnorthwest, but we will also have a little bit of drizzle.

[00:14:49]So, not dry with this with this wind, but a little bit of moisture again. So, that's what we're expecting tomorrow.

[00:14:56]Uh, also cooler conditions for Tuesday.

[00:14:59]Wednesday, high pressure builds overhead. It is our dry day. Uh, but much lighter winds. So, we have winds today, tomorrow, and then dry high pressure for Wednesday. As we move on past Wednesday, additional showers and thunderstorms are possible. Right now, they're pretty low chances, but we're going to continue to revise that and talk to the incident management team about those chances, wind directions, wind speeds, so that they can make the appropriate decisions on where to put people, how to keep folks safe, and to successfully manage the fire. Um, just want to note that we're going to be back into the 80s all the way through uh like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

[00:15:41]That is above normal temperatures for this area. And we have a lot of fire weather season left. Normally high temperatures this time of year are in the upper 70s. And uh we're kind of peaking at our highest time, hottest time of the year all the way now through August 15th. So, a lot of heat still, a lot of severe or showers and thunderstorms activity, more of that lightning potential, and also like I said, lots of fire season still ahead.

[00:16:12]Thank you.

[00:16:19]>> Hello everyone. Josh Hall. I'm here supporting the incident management team and the forest um forecasting air quality. Um the the good news is a lot of the smoke that the the massive amount of smoke that uh these fires generated about a week ago is is finally starting to clear out. The last little bit of it been sitting over Wisconsin pretty heavily and it's it's just now starting to clear out as these storms come through and and this front comes through and we're expecting significantly improved conditions. Um, with the rain we had a few days ago as well as what what occurred overnight, generally we're not seeing a lot of smoke being generated from these fires nor in Canada at this time. However, we do know these fires are going to be a long-term event and so there is a short reprieve we're expecting to see from air quality um over the next few days.

[00:17:21]However, you know, our uncertainty is, right, we have a lot more wind picking up. We haven't had rain in all locations. If there's any new ignitions that do get going, you know, there's always a potential for that to change.

[00:17:34]And so, we're we're watching those conditions very closely. Um, we're in close coordination with a lot of the state air pollution control agencies that are are monitoring smoke and making sure we're coordinating our forecasts.

[00:17:48]Um, but at this point, we're looking at uh some some better days, especially up in Minnesota. And we had a public meeting last night that was really excellent. There were a lot of folks who who showed up. And one of the messages we we mentioned there is, you know, now is a time to to get ready if there is more smoke coming in the future. And one of the groups that was there last night, the Eli Community Response, um they're at the state theater in Elely, they have N95 masks. They have a bunch of uh filters and box fans where people can create their own um uh way to clean air in their home. And so I I I encourage people to check that that out because there's a lot of folks in the community who fall in those categories that are particularly at risk for smoke. And just to remind people who those are, you know, young, elderly, people with pre-existing conditions, pregnant women are all susceptible to smoke. And there's there's likely a lot of people out in the community that are suffering.

[00:18:56]And so this is a great opportunity to kind of take those mitigations. Thanks.

[00:19:01]All right, folks. Uh, I want to come back up. I know we had some challenges with some of the communication being able to hear online. So, I'm going to talk about uh where we stand again today. So, my name is Shane Sturgil. I'm operation section chief with uh Southern Area Team 1. Uh, so as I mentioned on Friday, the Southern Area Team 1 took command control of 15 fires across the landscape. Um during that time we identified resource needs. Uh so we started requesting pushing orders for those resources, crews, engines, aviation assets. So that continues. Um the fires to the west are some of the smaller uh fires smaller in acreage still very important. Uh we're continuing with mop up and prep along those lines. Most of the lines are in around some of the larger fires over there. And we're continuing to build depth uh along the perimeter of those of those fires with mop up and patrol, utilizing water, utilizing aviation when needed. Uh moving across the landscape, we're looking at uh the echo corridor, the echo trail corridor. We have large fires across the landscape, mostly in the wilderness, but they are trying to come south to Echo Trail. So, our primary focus is in that area due to structures. It's a lot of structure assessment and structure protection. Uh, we're continuing to do that in those areas south of the echo trail corridor and and structures that are immediate within that echo trail corridor. That work is ongoing and continuing. It's a lot of long hours trying to locate structures, one assess them, and then bring in the proper equipment to make those structures safe and secure. Uh, that work's going to continue. We're also prepping along the Echo Trail to have that as our to control line to help stop the spread of this fire. Our priority mission is to keep that fire north of Echo Trail. We do have one slop over that came a little south of Echo Trail in the initial uh push with those fires. We do have line around that slop over south of the echo um trail and we're continuing to put the needed uh supplies, hose lays, pumps, crews in there monitoring, making sure that fire stayed in place. Uh along with that, there just a lot of structures within the area. We're methodically starting from Echo Trail and working our way south towards the higher populated communities. Um, we do have a lot of aviation assets that are out looking for new initial starts, which we did pick up three starts yesterday. Crews were very diligent about getting on those and keeping those at a small footprint with those fires. We're continuing as well to monitor those within our response area.

[00:21:51]We do have a ton of resources in here and we'll continue to get a lot of resources in here. So, I ask if you're out in the communities and you see those firefighters, ask those questions. They have a lot of valuable information that may be beneficial to you. Uh I want to talk a little bit about the evacuations, but I know there's a large area where folks have already been evacuated. We do have communities and and housing that is in areas that are in the ready and set.

[00:22:19]I ask that you start planning now. Think about what you might need to take, how you're going to leave, where you're going to go. Don't wait until you're in an evacuation to make those decisions.

[00:22:32]That's very important. We'll speed up that evacuation process. Um I know also we're looking at really critical infrastructure could which could be impacted and that is the hydro dam and the power supply there. We're going to continue to monitor. We're doing prep along that working closely with the power companies. All right, that's all I had. Thank you folks.

[00:22:57]Hey, good afternoon. Uh, try this for the second time. Uh, my name is Nick Petra. I'm the fire staff officer for the Superior Chipa National Forests. Um, just to elaborate a little bit beyond uh the fire situation we currently have around the Ele and Cook and Crane Lake area. I'll shift my focus to the Little Knife Fire that's currently burning northeast of the Gunlet. Um, that fire we received uh from Canada. Uh it's approximately around 55 to 6,000 acres.

[00:23:25]As of yesterday morning, our national incident management organization, NEMO team, took command of that fire situation. Uh we're working diligently as a forest with that NEMO team along with our international partners and county resources to do some strategic planning to be able to u get a foothold on what we have going on in that particular area. Um, of note, uh, we have daily coordination calls with our international partners starting at 10:00 in the morning, and we coordinate efforts and prioritize our assets, um, to help, uh, reduce the fire threat in that particular area. As talked about, um, we're under some um, some good fire weather, what I'd call it, for the next few days. Um part of my my position is to work with the national incident management teams, the southern area team and the forest to ensure that we have uh initial attack assets available for any new starts. Uh we've had quite a few uh lightning strikes in the last 48 to 72 hours in conjunction with both teams in the forest. We're doing everything we can uh to ensure that we're on top of any new starts. Uh we do expect a challenging day. Uh but I have full confidence with the amount of resources we have from the city, county, state, federal, international partners that we'll jump on them and uh do everything we can to to try to keep that footprint as small as possible. Uh mother nature is not done with us yet. Um and I like to say that uh due to the lightning activity. So, we we are prepared if she throws a bunch more lightning at us and we'll do everything we can uh in order to minimize the impact to the public and our firefighters. Thank you.

[00:25:04]>> Thanks, Nick. So, I just like to wrap this up with a reminder for the Little Knife Fire. We have a July 20th um public meeting at the fire hall on the Gunflint Trail at 3:00.

[00:25:22]Um, additionally, July 21st, we have a public meeting at the Luden Town Hall at 116 Caribou Trail at 700 p.m. Both of those will also be streamed live on our Facebook page. Um, so please utilize our Facebook page to be able to or any of the media outlets um that are here and streaming. You know, this is very valuable information for you, which is why we're doing it on a consistent basis um to keep you informed. Uh we also have daily updates that you can access through our Inc Webb um account.

[00:25:58]So just Google INSE web and there's a little flame over miss over um Minnesota and click in there and all the incident information that you'd ever want to this to date. We just updated that this morning. So um please make sure that you're keeping all of that up to date and we appreciate your time and I will open it up to questions now.

[00:26:23]>> I have a question about the total acreage. I know on your news release that you handed out just now around 63,000 with another uh about 8,400 in Canada. Uh that number uh those numbers were larger in previous news releases.

[00:26:38]Does that mean is that a revised estimate or is that what's on fire right now and excludes what's been put out?

[00:26:47]>> Right. So based on the or you want to you want to handle that one?

[00:26:52]>> Sure.

[00:26:53]>> Yeah, I can address that. So the question is uh as of today a little bit of reduction of acreage compared to where we had reported previously. So after these fires have moved through uh we had a switch out switch of winds out of the north which really um reduces our ability to fly reconnaissance in smoky conditions. Um so we really rely on satellite imagery. Um and some of that uh information is very challenging challenging for us to interpret as far as heat signatures um and various uh you know other technology we use. So, in the last few days, we've been able to utilize some of our aircraft for for some better mapping capacity. We've also been able to add tools to our toolbox to get more of an accurate size of exactly where these fires are. So, that's a very common um a common circumstance where we're refining exactly where that the fire perimeters are. And so you may see some fluctuation here and there as we either introduce people on the ground, have the ability to fly aircraft, and utilize tools to bring us the the most intelligence that we can to the current situation.

[00:27:58]>> Can you talk about where those three new starts were? Were those uh ignited by lightning or by embers or what you you know about that?

[00:28:08]>> Yeah, so right now I believe that was determined that they were all lightning caused um fires at this time. Um I the exact area I can tell you they're on the west part of the forest uh in conjunction with the state of Minnesota.

[00:28:20]Um the state the county fire departments and the forest service have all um been on those fires and we're doing everything we can to in the in the monitor phase to make sure that we're taking care of those. In addition to that while supplying firefighters to those fires we we have a certain amount of assets for new starts also. So, as new fires start, the fire progresses, um that's where all the resources that we currently have across the forest um take action on at this time.

[00:28:51]>> The lightning strikes overnight and this morning or do we know yet?

[00:28:54]>> Yeah, so the question was, was there new lightning strikes as of this morning from the lightning last night? Um we don't know quite yet. So what happens is uh as we get aerial recon over these fires as the public reports them um that's something that we typically look at as as soon as we can. So as of now I'm not aware of an exact lightning strike that we can pinpoint as of this morning. Typically we wait for aerial recon somewhere between the 1300 and500 mark because it's the heat of the day the lowest humidity in the wind. So we fly aerial surveillance with that there's a lot of aircraft movement working the fires that the CINT has. So between their path from the airport um to those fire locations we have a lot of eyes in the sky in conjunction with uh our partners along the border um nothing reported yet but it's still early in the day.

[00:29:46]>> Is there a way to tell if any part of this is contaminated or contained or or not? The question is, >> is any part of the fires contained there or anything like that? Too early to tell.

[00:29:59]>> It it's too early to tell. The question was, are any of these fires contained? I can tell you that uh we have uh a lot of people on the ground, the firefighters, we've allocated our resources to to protect those values at risk and they're doing everything they can uh with heavy equipment, saw lines, uh hose lays to be able to get some containment on the map.

[00:30:19]>> It was mentioned earlier that there were 760 personnel. Um, is that number going to grow in the coming days and if so by how much?

[00:30:26]>> Okay, so the question was the number is 760. I believe a couple days ago we talked about the 500 mark. So that number I would anticipate to grow. Um, right now once we get a handle between the the little knife fire, what the CINT has and for initial attack, we do have some additional resources trickling in.

[00:30:45]Um I would say it should go up a little bit and then probably plateau based on what we have and we'll adjust accordingly uh with what the team has and what we have for initial attack to rightsize our organization for what we have what we anticipate and for international needs.

[00:31:00]>> There any injuries reported any estimate on the number of structures that >> um I currently don't have any estimate on structures. I can say we've reported uh three three minor injuries from our firefighters.

[00:31:13]Could you give any word how critical are these next couple days with this this wind this critical fire conditions? I mean is this kind of a a crux moment with you know the the conditions and the size of the fires and the energy output?

[00:31:28]>> Yeah. So the question was is this a crux moment um in the next few days? So we definitely have challenging weather. Um we're not having as challenging weather as we saw last week with 100 degree temperatures. Humidity is down in that 20% and lower end winds, but as you're aware, it's very windy out. Um watching the wind directions is is extremely important for us. I just want to reiterate it's we're in July. Um these fires are going to be on the landscape for quite some time. August is usually one of our hottest months where our burning period is extremely long. That's one of our warmer months. So, um, we're doing everything we can for the next few days. We're hoping for precipitation just like everybody else. But I want to be clear that, um, just because we get through this hurdle, we have a lot of fire on the landscape and we still have a long season ahead of us. So, from a forest perspective, the planning that we do to be able to get us through, let's call the later part of the summer and into the fall and really a season ending event is going to be critical. Um, I do expect fires to be present on the landscape for for that long and we'll just see what mother nature brings to us in August and in the future rainfall months.

[00:32:40]>> Nick, you mentioned sorry here, but you you talked about the challenges of direct suppression.

[00:32:46]>> Yeah.

[00:32:46]>> Could you talk is that because of the remoteness and I guess a followup are there are you sending fire parties out in the wilderness yet? Are they are those grounds still focusing more on the trail than >> Sure. So the question was the challenges of direct suppression. Uh these fires under are under a direct suppression strategy. Um it's very challenging based on where these fires are located, the fuels that are driving them. So as firefighters, it's we have to have lookouts. We have to have escape routes and we have to have safety zones.

[00:33:15]Nowhere do we we don't introduce firefighters into equation unless we have certain protocol for them in order to come out safely. Obviously we have the public safety side of it. If we can safely put people into a location to size up and to do suppression tactics, that's what we will do. Um, I want to ensure the group on this, but every situation is unique. And the the fuel loading in some parts, uh, depending on the wind speed for the day or the potential forecast, we got to make sure that we have a plan in place that we can extract our firefighters as safely as possible. We also do a lot of planning in case one of our firefighters were to get hurt. How do we get him or her out of the situation if we were to put them in that situation? So, there is really no blanket answer. Uh we will certainly go into the wilderness with with our personnel and we'll look for natural boundaries where we can reduce the impact both on the wilderness and from our firefighters standpoint to utilize a natural barrier before we kind of introduce any any type of hose lay in that. So, it's a really tough question to answer. Um, but that that's the best I can give you at this point. Dan, >> any other question?

[00:34:26]>> Can I ask a question about Tom?

[00:34:30]>> I've got a question like that. Could you say anything about I mean, do you know of all people are accounting for their life?

[00:34:40]>> So, as we sort of talked about in the past, I'm never going to get to that 100%. Uh we have actually noticed that there are some cars in some entry point uh parking lots and so uh we're actually working with law enforcement officers to identify uh who they are and where they are. Um whether they had previously exited and then re-entered uh we are definitely dealing with that in this closure knowing that not every area has a direct fire uh engagement right now.

[00:35:08]And so people are getting frustrated.

[00:35:10]People are starting to push those boundaries. Uh until we get to that point, we are still in that closure and we are still assessing whether we're able to get everybody out because there is still that risk. Do you have outfitters have any clients out there still >> at this point? Um all the outfitters that we've talked to do not have any clients out there any longer. Uh we did have some of that back and forth over the last week as we're uh trying to get everybody out whether they needed additional support or that. uh we did help with a lot of extractions especially within those first few days and then helping the sheriff's offices track uh where some of those parties were to make sure that they did get out.

[00:35:49]Uh one thing that Nick said uh related to lightning strikes and the question that you answer or that you asked earlier of if we have lightning today, you know, when are we going to start to detect that? And really it could be a week or longer uh before we really a lightning strike today. it could be that long before it really shows itself um and then starts to move on that landscape. So, uh we are diligent and we are going to continue to monitor the entire forest uh as we continue to get these storms to come through with lightning.

[00:36:22]There was a question online.

[00:36:24]>> Yeah. So, >> so my understanding there's a question online about uh our aerial resources and what uh missions that they may be doing.

[00:36:35]So currently uh using IR, you guys heard us talking about IR, we're looking for those heat signatures in along the perimeter of these fires. Uh we identified some heat that was along what's called bear trap fire. We also identified some heat uh within that sue perimeter. So when we do that, we utilize aviation to go in uh to deliver water. It's a water delivery system where they'll come in, they'll they'll put more moisture on the ground. Um, so that's what our aviation resources are being utilized at this time. It's also um we use them as a lookout. They're up in the air. They can see broader areas where our firefighters down in the timber camp. So that helps us detect those lightning starts, those new starts. Um, you know, the starts we had yesterday were probably from lightning on Friday. So like like they were saying, they they're holding there. So having that aerial detection platform helps us identify where those areas are.

[00:37:35]From there they can help uh guide the resources on the ground to go in and do that good work. Uh so any kind of aerial resources we use for water delivery. We always follow up with crews to uh once those aerial resources are clear, the crews go in and look at what other mitigations we need to do.

[00:37:57]Another question online. Um, having the southern area incident management team here, has this level of national involvement commanding a fire complex happened to this scale?

[00:38:14]>> So, I believe the question was, have we had a a national complex in incident management team to this scale on the forest? Is that correct? If I understand the question, yes, we have. Uh, we did last year. Um, unfortunately this area up in northeast Minnesota and Superior National Forest is is used to having national incident management teams. Um, we've uh since about 2021, we've gone through probably approximately between 12 to 15 teams. As far as uh national teams, um, you know, the Jenkins Jenkins Creek Camp House prior to that in 21, the Green uh, the Greenwood fire. Um, so it's something that we know that we have assets to. Um, when we get challenged both on the force and within the state of Minnesota, we search out, uh, we put the request in for some additional capacity. Um, so certainly they've been here. They're they're getting used to being here. Um, and we're not afraid to put those requests in for additional assistance.

[00:39:12]>> Okay, one more question if we have one.

[00:39:18]>> I know. Previously there have been like a number of fires now we know that changing obviously is there a flat number different >> I don't think I heard the question over here.

[00:39:38]>> Yeah. So how many total fire do we have on the landscape right now?

[00:39:49]So the question was how many fires do we have on the total landscape? I would say it's safe to say between 24 to 26. Um part of that is jurisdictional. So um the forest service manages our fires, the state manages their fires, but we work very closely together and share assets across. Um so I would say let's just call it 25. Um it's give or take one or two and that number could be as high as uh 30. It's not going to go down today, but it could certainly increase.

[00:40:18]So, we're doing everything we can to keep that number small as far as acreage goes, but um hopefully we stay in that that mark of 25 for the ship.

[00:40:28]Good.

[00:40:29]>> Thank you.