WATCH: Brimson Complex fires Monday, May 19 briefing
The Eastern Area Incident Management Team hosted a community meeting on Monday, May 19, at 6 p.m. on the Jenkins Creek and Camp House wildfires.
The latest report from the incident management team says the Jenkins Creek Fire is now 6% contained. The EA IMT says it has made great progress with the Brimson Complex Fire, which has burned a total of 28,609 acres as of Monday morning. The Brimson Complex includes the Jenkins Creek Fire and the Camp House Fire.
A main concern for many residents in the areas around the fires are road closures. Highway 16 opened on Monday, but Highway 44 along with Forest Road 11 remains closed.
“These road closures are evaluated daily, and it’s not just a decision made by one entity. It’s all those involved. And often involves, what does the fire service need for access and how often are they using the roads? Are they stopping on the roads? Do they create a potential hazard if we were to open that road up for normal traffic? All those things are considered whether to open those roads up,” said St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay.
Another concern for area residents are evacuation zones. Sheriff Ramsay explained that evacuation zones are evaluated daily and safety is top priority.
“Obviously, we want to let people get in back to their homes as soon as possible. But there’s a whole bunch of factors primarily being your safety that how those are decided,” said Sheriff Ramsay.
The Eastern Area Incident Management team was brought in to work on the Camp House and Jenkins Creek fires last week due to the scope and size of the two fires.
“So overall, with fires of these sizes, not one single organization can effectively put them out. So that’s why we brought in the incident management team to help us manage these fires. And that gives us the opportunities to bring in resources from all across the country,” said Matt Wappler, Assistant Regional Manager with the DNR Division of Forestry.
Recently the weather has been working in the fire crews favor with recent rain, high humidity, and cooler temperatures across the northland.
“Obviously it takes time and we saw that there were large growth of the fire areas and the weather has been really fortunate for us as those fires have really stopped over the last few days,” said Tom Hall, Forest Supervisor at the Superior National Forest.
The Eastern Area Incident management team has taken advantage of the weather to direct attacks and gain containment on both fires. Jenkins Creek is 6% contained and Camp House is 40% contained currently.
The team says their main goal is to stop the spread of the fires.
“We are not letting these fires burn for any reason at all. The goal is to put them out where they sit,” said Micah Bell the Public Information Officer with the Eastern Area Incident Management team.
There have been fluctuations in acreage of the two fires as the management efforts continue. Public information Officer Bell explained that some acreage increases have been tactical decisions.
“Sometimes we have to wait for the fire to come to us just because we need to catch it in the right spot. It’s not because we’re trying to let it burn intentionally in your woods. We are trying to put it out exactly where it is,” said . Public information Officer Bell.
As efforts to manage the blaze continue the fire weather index has gone down because of rain. With gusty wind forecasted the Weather index is expected to go up, but experts remain optimistic.
“Number one, we had rain. Number two, we had a lot of hard effort on the ground. Putting fire out, putting lines in, squashing it down. They’re out there now finding any hot spots that are showing up with the wind. And so the footprint and the condition on the ground where this fire is, is way different than when it was rocking and rolling,” said Mike Locke, Fire Behavior Analyst.
As the rain dies down crews now have the chance to use drones with Infrared technology to help them better survey the fire.
“Over the last couple of days, the weather hasn’t given us the ability to fly aircraft. So we’re using IR capability with drones to locate hot spots in there so we can send folks to where those hot spots are showing through the IR,” said Joe Allye, Operations Section Chief of the Incident Management Team.
As the incident management team continues to work on the fires they are moving personnel and equipment between the two fires to get the most our of their resources.
“We’re moving those resources around to the appropriate areas as we need them. But that’s a lot of people that are out on that line(…) and putting in work in some very rugged country and hazardous areas,” said Brian Jenkins, Incident Commander.
Multiple officials addressed residents affected directly, expressing the impact of the fires has been devastating.
“I know that anxiety. I have staff in my office that are currently still displaced with the closure, and plenty of people that are hurting. And are impacted and are stressed out, and we feel that impact for you,” said a representative for the Laurentian Ranger District of the Superior National Forest.