7:00 WTIP update

Live blogging the 7:00 WTIP broadcast of the fire update:

7:10
• WTIP is a great source for information
• Growth by rush lake today, also towards the east end of Loon
• The north side of the fire in Canada is growing into more fingers
• Today, strong push by granite river and sag, spotted over to horseshoe island
• large 100' flames in this area
• Canadian officials have evacuated the area on the north of sag
• Not sure how far it has pushed into canada
• Good news is on the "finger"
• Things have held well today
• They have been pushed, active fire on both sides of the gunflint trail
• Nothing beyond the line of the burn out, worked very well
• Active on the southern end of the finger, some spotting occurred to the north and south of rush lake
• Working very hard to get the lines around the finger tied off, new lines built today
• New line by west end of gunflint towards round lake
• New line by seagull on devision "X"
• Planning if conditions allow to build lines by east Mayhew to south lake in anticipation of doing a burn out. Protect the houses on north Mayhew.
• Storms coming
• Storms bring rain, wind and lighting. We don't know what we will get, we hope we get rain and not the other two

7:15
• Today was a very good day.
• Worried the winds were going to blow from the west towards poplar lake but didn't happen
• Eventually winds will come out of the west, and if it does we will have to evacuate the Poplar lake area again
• Realistically they will evacuate Poplar again in the next few days
• 2 kinds of evacuation -
• "Cautionary" fire is near, be careful, be prepared to leave at a moments notice
• "Mandatory" fire is here, you are in harms way. You can not be forced to leave
• The way the patterns are looking right now, property owners might be able to get past the road block to check out property up the trail to document the property
• Evacuation is still on, just to allow people to check out their property.
• Middle or end of this week

• Showing a map of salvage logging, previous fires, prescribed burns
• Next meeting tomorrow at 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM. This will be a pattern until you hear otherwise.


Seems like the winds were not as bad as they predicted today! Now we can hope for rain tonight. The forecast still calls for 50% chance of thunderstorms!