Ham Lake Update
Incident: Ham Lake Wildland Fire
Released: 5/6/2007
The Ham Lake fire, located approximately 20 miles northwest of Grand Marais, MN, burned most of last night and is thought to be approximately 6000-8000 acres. As of 10:45 this morning a mandatory evacuation was ordered for the Gunflint Trail northwest of the Cross River crossing (about the last seven miles of the Trail). An evacuation center is established at the Community Center in Grand Marais.
The Type II Incident Management Team was briefed last night and are setup this morning at the Sea Gull Guard station near the west end of the Gunflint trail. A resort and camp sites on Round Lake were evacuated yesterday as the fire spread quickly to the west with strong south easterly winds that gusted up to 30mph. Air and ground resources were able to protect most structures however; one small out building was lost.
During the evening, more resources were ordered and are now on scene and/or en route. Today, Sunday, a red flag warning has been issued by the National Weather Service meaning extreme fire behavior conditions will exist well into the evening hours.
The items assigned to this fire are as follows:
62 Overhead
2 Dozers
5 Engines ( plus 5 more on order)
2 20 person crews (plus 2 more on order arriving later today from Michigan)
2 Heavy helicopters
3 CL 215s
1 Heavy air tanker
Air attack platform
1 Light helicopter
Numerous structural fire engines from local fire departments.
At this time most of Minnesota's resources are committed.
Some closures are in effect for entry points and trails in the fire area. To get the latest details on closures go to www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/superior. A map and further fire information is available on http://www.inciweb.org/.
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