Two Harbors Firefighter Loses Cabin in Greenwood Fire

Eighteen years ago, Two Harbors firefighter Rick Skoog built his cabin. It took him three years to build this cabin, but the Greenwood fire was able to destroy it effortlessly.

"It’s just, the big column of smoke just goes up and it’s super windy,” Skoog said. “I came to the realization that my cabin just isn’t going to survive this."

Skoog was part of the initial crew that got called out to the fire when it was first spotted on Sunday, August 15th.

By August 16th, the fire was estimated to be over a thousand acres. As it continued to grow exponentially, multiple crews were called to help with the fire, including local volunteer firefighters.

National teams came to help as well, including an incident two response team. A total of 493 personnel are on this fire.

“What we try to do is try to burn black to black,” explained Cherry Volunteer Firefighter Sheri Fleetwood. “So if we can go outside the border of the fire and burn back on itself, that’s how we can contain it and keep it from spreading, especially to structures.”

Despite these efforts, at least 14 primary structures and 57 outbuildings have been destroyed, including Skoog’s cabin.

“Driving up, you could see that it was just totally black on both sides of the road,” said Skoog. “Trees, they didn’t look like trees anymore. Just burnt. Half a mile away, I figured out that it’s just not there anymore.”