144: The Ham Lake Fire Part 3 – It Just Happened

Episode Transcript

[0:00:23 – 0:00:25] Adam: Welcome to Tumble Home, a Boundary Waters podcast.
[0:00:25 – 0:00:27] Adam: I’m coming to you live from Studio K2 with a view.
[0:00:27 – 0:00:28] Adam: My name is Adam.
[0:00:28 – 0:00:31] Adam: I’m joined here, gracious host, Eric.
[0:00:32 – 0:00:32] Adam: Hello, Eric.
[0:00:32 – 0:00:33] Adam: Hello.
[0:00:34 – 0:00:34] Adam: Getting to it.
[0:00:35 – 0:00:40] Adam: This is part three of the Ham Like Fire series.
[0:00:41 – 0:00:42] Adam: Probably the final.
[0:00:42 – 0:00:43] Erik: It is going to be the final.
[0:00:43 – 0:00:44] Erik: We have to finish it.
[0:00:45 – 0:00:47] Erik: There are so many other things to talk about.
[0:00:47 – 0:00:48] Erik: The open water season is here.
[0:00:51 – 0:00:58] Erik: We’re talking where you’re heading, what you’re doing, what are you thinking might be a new tactic for you.
[0:00:58 – 0:00:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:00:59 – 0:01:12] Erik: The open water season, this 2021, this is probably the first one of these that we’ve done since we started the show where open water is currently, it currently exists.
[0:01:12 – 0:01:14] Erik: People are out on trips, I think.
[0:01:14 – 0:01:21] Adam: I saw a canoe on top of a truck yesterday and we were looking at like ice out data on the computer just earlier today.
[0:01:21 – 0:01:24] Adam: A lot of lakes, it says Gunflint’s out.
[0:01:25 – 0:01:26] Adam: How’s Clearwater looking, do you think?
[0:01:27 – 0:01:27] Erik: Oh, it’s out.
[0:01:27 – 0:01:29] Adam: It went out like five days ago.
[0:01:29 – 0:01:30] Adam: It’s all out.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:32] Erik: You could be out on the Vento right now.
[0:01:32 – 0:01:32] Erik: Maybe you are.
[0:01:33 – 0:01:35] Adam: Sneaky late April entry.
[0:01:36 – 0:01:36] Adam: It’s pretty sneaky.
[0:01:36 – 0:01:40] Adam: If you got out at the last day of April, could you just stay out the whole summer with no permit?
[0:01:40 – 0:01:41] Erik: That’s a good question.
[0:01:41 – 0:01:43] Erik: I often think about that loophole.
[0:01:43 – 0:01:46] Erik: Go in April 30th, stay until October.
[0:01:46 – 0:01:49] Adam: Stay as long as you like.
[0:01:49 – 0:01:51] Erik: Make yourself at home.
[0:01:51 – 0:01:55] Erik: I’m sure there’s something written in that would get you in trouble for that still.
[0:01:56 – 0:02:03] Adam: Yeah, they got a 2000 BSL report on that one.
[0:02:05 – 0:02:09] Erik: Yeah, we’re sponsored, as always, by our fine friends on Patreon.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:09] Erik: Stay tuned.
[0:02:10 – 0:02:13] Erik: There are tents, and they do camp.
[0:02:13 – 0:02:14] Erik: There are tents.
[0:02:14 – 0:02:15] Erik: In the movie Love, Liza.
[0:02:15 – 0:02:16] Erik: That’s true.
[0:02:16 – 0:02:21] Erik: Which is going to come out here in, well, it’s probably out now by the time you’re listening to this.
[0:02:23 – 0:02:24] Erik: Yeah, don’t ask us why.
[0:02:24 – 0:02:28] Erik: It came up as a movie we wanted to talk about, and so we are going to talk about it.
[0:02:28 – 0:02:29] Adam: Yeah.
[0:02:30 – 0:02:35] Adam: I don’t know how it came up either, but it was on the list for a while and slowly just worked its way to the top of the list.
[0:02:36 – 0:02:37] Adam: That’s how she goes.
[0:02:37 – 0:02:37] Erik: Yep.
[0:02:38 – 0:02:39] Adam: Pretty good movie.
[0:02:39 – 0:02:40] Adam: Pretty good flick, I would say.
[0:02:40 – 0:02:41] Erik: Pretty good.
[0:02:41 – 0:02:45] Erik: $5 a month on patreon.com backslash tumblehomepodcast.
[0:02:46 – 0:03:03] Erik: We’ll gain you access to that conversation as well as almost close to 20 other movies at this point that are much more outdoor based, camping based, paddling based, Kevin Bacon based, and Sean Astin based.
[0:03:04 – 0:03:10] Erik: We don’t know what we’re going to do in May for Tumble Home Cinema Classics, but again, if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear them.
[0:03:10 – 0:03:16] Erik: Otherwise, we will figure out something that won’t make sense to you, but will make sense to us.
[0:03:17 – 0:03:21] Adam: And as always, I got a list in here somewhere in the notebook.
[0:03:21 – 0:03:23] Adam: We’re getting to the end of the black notebook here.
[0:03:24 – 0:03:24] Erik: Yeah.
[0:03:25 – 0:03:34] Erik: We’re sponsored this week by a unique beer, I would say, in terms of what we typically get sponsored by.
[0:03:35 – 0:03:41] Erik: And I don’t know necessarily why these ones jumped off the shelf when I was thinking about what was going to sponsor this episode.
[0:03:41 – 0:03:47] Erik: I think it has a little something to do with how they fought the fire at the end.
[0:03:47 – 0:03:52] Erik: Some of the controlled burns use these little things that they drop from helicopters to start fires on purpose.
[0:03:53 – 0:03:56] Erik: And these are Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor.
[0:03:56 – 0:03:58] Erik: We used to call them grenades.
[0:03:58 – 0:03:59] Erik: I’m sure everybody else out there did.
[0:03:59 – 0:04:01] Erik: They come with the little riddles on the cap.
[0:04:02 – 0:04:05] Adam: Yeah, I was befuddled by the warm-up Mickey’s.
[0:04:07 – 0:04:09] Adam: Eric had to translate for me.
[0:04:11 – 0:04:19] Erik: Yep, not very often that the opening of the show for beers comes with a cap cracking noise.
[0:04:20 – 0:04:24] Erik: So you can screw the lid back on for beers on the go.
[0:04:25 – 0:04:27] Erik: Yeah, you don’t want to spill accidentally.
[0:04:27 – 0:04:27] Erik: Nope.
[0:04:28 – 0:04:29] Erik: Crack your Mickeys.
[0:04:29 – 0:04:30] Adam: I don’t know, I’m not getting any.
[0:04:30 – 0:04:34] Adam: I thought I had some notes in here on other future… Oh, TCCs?
[0:04:34 – 0:04:35] Adam: TCC ideas.
[0:04:35 – 0:04:36] Adam: I know they’re in here somewhere.
[0:04:37 – 0:04:38] Adam: Con Air.
[0:04:39 – 0:04:39] Erik: Cheers.
[0:04:39 – 0:04:40] Erik: Con Air.
[0:04:41 – 0:04:41] Adam: Con Air.
[0:04:42 – 0:04:44] Adam: No, we’re not going to do Con Air.
[0:04:44 – 0:04:47] Adam: That was out of line, Adam.
[0:04:48 – 0:04:48] Erik: That was out of line.
[0:04:50 – 0:04:50] Erik: Fine malt liquor.
[0:04:52 – 0:04:54] Adam: Made in Milwaukee.
[0:04:54 – 0:04:55] Erik: The good land.
[0:04:55 – 0:04:58] Adam: I’m going to keep going back.
[0:04:58 – 0:05:00] Adam: There’s a lot of fun stuff in here, though.
[0:05:00 – 0:05:03] Adam: I got a map from the race from Winnipeg to St. Paul.
[0:05:06 – 0:05:09] Erik: Yeah, I think my Mickey’s cap says nice behind.
[0:05:11 – 0:05:12] Erik: Is that what you would say that is?
[0:05:14 – 0:05:14] Adam: It is.
[0:05:15 – 0:05:17] Adam: Yeah, so it’s the ball and the box thing going on here.
[0:05:18 – 0:05:20] Adam: The ball was in the box, and I’m like, what is this?
[0:05:20 – 0:05:22] Adam: Present, box.
[0:05:22 – 0:05:23] Adam: Here it goes now.
[0:05:23 – 0:05:24] Adam: It’s in.
[0:05:24 – 0:05:25] Adam: The ball is in the box.
[0:05:25 – 0:05:28] Erik: Yeah, they use the box and the ball to establish…
[0:05:30 – 0:05:50] Adam: placement of things oh i just saw a note here we got to do a tree rankers episode remember that yeah we’re way back here into the winter at this point we’ll be getting a tree rankers episode out there um asap you stay tuned for that tree rankers is coming up after the tumblies after the tumblies and the season uh premiere oh we got uh
[0:05:50 – 0:06:03] Adam: anchor bar reference here too i got back to anchor bar again second time now i’m hooked i’m hooked we’re down yonder the other day and uh coming back through superior and i said uh should we stop at anchor bar
[0:06:04 – 0:06:06] Adam: Get a pitcher and a beer.
[0:06:06 – 0:06:08] Adam: And so he sat at the bar, Eric.
[0:06:08 – 0:06:13] Adam: And they do have the, I can confirm, they have the thing that slices the potatoes.
[0:06:13 – 0:06:14] Adam: Like, chunk, chunk, chunk.
[0:06:14 – 0:06:15] Erik: For fries.
[0:06:15 – 0:06:16] Adam: Right into the bucket.
[0:06:16 – 0:06:19] Adam: And then from there, right to the deep fryer with a little salt, it looked like.
[0:06:19 – 0:06:20] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:20 – 0:06:20] Adam: Pure.
[0:06:22 – 0:06:23] Adam: Pure is the driven tot.
[0:06:24 – 0:06:25] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[0:06:25 – 0:06:26] Adam: That’s the way to do it.
[0:06:26 – 0:06:26] Adam: It was awesome.
[0:06:26 – 0:06:27] Adam: Yeah, we sat at the bar.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:30] Adam: They got the thing where it fills up your pitcher from the bottom.
[0:06:30 – 0:06:31] Adam: You ever seen one of these?
[0:06:31 – 0:06:32] Adam: I have seen those, yeah.
[0:06:32 – 0:06:33] Erik: Holy smokes.
[0:06:34 – 0:06:37] Erik: It’s supposedly the most sanitary way to pour beer.
[0:06:37 – 0:06:38] Erik: No foam.
[0:06:38 – 0:06:40] Adam: That’s the way Carl Ferrett wants it.
[0:06:40 – 0:06:41] Erik: Yeah, yeah.
[0:06:42 – 0:06:43] Erik: Carl Ferrett, of course.
[0:06:43 – 0:06:45] Adam: I’m getting all sorts of fun old notes here.
[0:06:45 – 0:06:47] Adam: We’re all the way back to deliverance here.
[0:06:47 – 0:06:48] Adam: TCC 10.
[0:06:48 – 0:06:48] Adam: Wow.
[0:06:49 – 0:06:51] Adam: Dog shorts, just in quotes.
[0:06:51 – 0:06:52] Adam: What’s that all about?
[0:06:52 – 0:06:56] Erik: I love that that quote and those two words took up an entire page for you.
[0:06:58 – 0:06:58] Erik: That page is shot.
[0:06:59 – 0:06:59] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:06:59 – 0:07:01] Adam: I guess I don’t have a… Oh, here it is.
[0:07:02 – 0:07:03] Adam: It’s literally on page two of this notebook.
[0:07:03 – 0:07:04] Adam: Are you kidding me?
[0:07:05 – 0:07:08] Adam: Here’s some other ones we had on the list for TCC ideas.
[0:07:08 – 0:07:10] Adam: Happy People, Werner Herzog.
[0:07:10 – 0:07:11] Adam: We got to get to that one.
[0:07:11 – 0:07:12] Adam: Sleeping Giant.
[0:07:12 – 0:07:13] Adam: River Wild was on there.
[0:07:14 – 0:07:15] Adam: And Hoosiers.
[0:07:15 – 0:07:16] Adam: So we’ve got two of them off there.
[0:07:17 – 0:07:17] Adam: Why was Hoosiers on there?
[0:07:17 – 0:07:20] Adam: And then also I have Princess Mononoke on this list.
[0:07:20 – 0:07:20] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:07:20 – 0:07:21] Erik: You have mentioned that in the past.
[0:07:21 – 0:07:21] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:21 – 0:07:23] Adam: I wouldn’t mind watching that one, too.
[0:07:23 – 0:07:24] Adam: All right.
[0:07:24 – 0:07:26] Adam: So Happy People maybe is next.
[0:07:26 – 0:07:26] Adam: Maybe.
[0:07:26 – 0:07:27] Adam: Or Fly Away Home.
[0:07:27 – 0:07:29] Adam: Fly Away Home.
[0:07:29 – 0:07:32] Adam: With Anna Paquin.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:33] Adam: Yes.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:34] Adam: This is a goose pilot.
[0:07:34 – 0:07:36] Erik: Slash Ellen Page, which I think was the original.
[0:07:36 – 0:07:36] Erik: Right.
[0:07:36 – 0:07:37] Erik: Exactly.
[0:07:37 – 0:07:40] Erik: It was the main flyer of the big goose hang glider.
[0:07:41 – 0:07:47] Adam: I’m going to give this Mickey’s Grenade four out of five bangs.
[0:07:48 – 0:07:51] Erik: I’m going to give it five out of five nostalgias.
[0:07:51 – 0:07:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:52 – 0:07:54] Erik: Because these were the…
[0:07:55 – 0:08:01] Erik: I remember buying cases of these where they would come in like the low flat 24 pack with the handles on the sides.
[0:08:01 – 0:08:01] Adam: Yeah.
[0:08:01 – 0:08:01] Adam: Yeah.
[0:08:02 – 0:08:06] Erik: That’s when you knew you were in for a really, really good time.
[0:08:08 – 0:08:09] Adam: What do you have there, Ron?
[0:08:09 – 0:08:11] Adam: Share outdoor calendar fact of the day.
[0:08:11 – 0:08:15] Adam: Any sightings or any wildlife to report?
[0:08:16 – 0:08:17] Adam: We don’t have the calendar.
[0:08:17 – 0:08:18] Adam: Big surprise, all right?
[0:08:18 – 0:08:19] Adam: We lost the second calendar.
[0:08:19 – 0:08:20] Adam: We’ve been recording at K2.
[0:08:21 – 0:08:25] Adam: So I keep forgetting to look it up, but I can guarantee the sunset.
[0:08:25 – 0:08:28] Adam: It is April 29th here on the North Shore.
[0:08:29 – 0:08:29] Adam: A little windy.
[0:08:30 – 0:08:33] Adam: Sunset’s at 8.15 p.m. What’s the fact of the day, Eric?
[0:08:34 – 0:08:42] Erik: The fact of the day is it’s 60 degrees and sunny, and it’s a damn shame that we’re inside recording, but we’re doing it for you.
[0:08:42 – 0:08:43] Erik: Spring is here.
[0:08:45 – 0:08:47] Erik: All of the lakes, as far as I know, are open.
[0:08:47 – 0:08:48] Adam: I saw the bittern.
[0:08:49 – 0:08:50] Erik: You laid eyes on the bittern.
[0:08:50 – 0:08:51] Adam: I seened that thing.
[0:08:51 – 0:08:52] Adam: Nice.
[0:08:52 – 0:08:53] Adam: It’s like a reed in the wind.
[0:08:55 – 0:08:55] Adam: Freaky.
[0:08:57 – 0:08:59] Adam: Anyways, I was camped on Cross Bay Lake, Eric.
[0:09:00 – 0:09:01] Adam: I promised you.
[0:09:01 – 0:09:02] Adam: Can you help me with the pack?
[0:09:02 – 0:09:03] Adam: Can you help me with this pack?
[0:09:03 – 0:09:05] Adam: I was on Cross Bay Lake.
[0:09:06 – 0:09:06] Erik: For two nights?
[0:09:08 – 0:09:09] Adam: Yeah, all two of the nights.
[0:09:13 – 0:09:17] Adam: I never have listened to Janet Jackson’s smash hit album, If, on headphones.
[0:09:17 – 0:09:21] Adam: I don’t even own headphones.
[0:09:21 – 0:09:22] Adam: Why would you ask about headphones?
[0:09:23 – 0:09:24] Adam: I was on Crossbait Lake.
[0:09:24 – 0:09:29] Erik: Ten people did see you at that first campsite on Ham with headphones on.
[0:09:29 – 0:09:30] Erik: I don’t have headphones.
[0:09:30 – 0:09:32] Adam: I don’t read newspapers either.
[0:09:33 – 0:09:34] Adam: Oh, God.
[0:09:35 – 0:09:36] Adam: Can you help me with this pack?
[0:09:37 – 0:09:37] Adam: Jeez.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:38] Adam: Oh, jeez.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:39] Erik: Oh, jeez.
[0:09:40 – 0:09:45] Erik: We did get a lot of good responses on the subreddit in terms of who should play some of the roles.
[0:09:45 – 0:09:49] Erik: I think the most responses we got were on who should play Posniak.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:51] Erik: We got some more…
[0:09:51 – 0:09:55] Erik: I think Patton Oswalt was also tossed out there as a…
[0:09:57 – 0:09:59] Erik: Steve Buscemi as one of the pilots in the sky.
[0:09:59 – 0:09:59] Erik: Yeah.
[0:09:59 – 0:10:01] Erik: Which would be pretty good.
[0:10:01 – 0:10:02] Adam: Scooper pilot, number one.
[0:10:03 – 0:10:04] Erik: Speaking of Con Air.
[0:10:05 – 0:10:06] Adam: Yeah.
[0:10:06 – 0:10:09] Adam: It’s just one of his finest roles.
[0:10:09 – 0:10:13] Erik: He’s got the whole world in his hands.
[0:10:14 – 0:10:15] Adam: I’m going to have to rewatch Con Air now.
[0:10:15 – 0:10:16] Erik: You should.
[0:10:17 – 0:10:18] Erik: They don’t make movies like that anymore.
[0:10:19 – 0:10:22] Erik: And that’s not necessarily like an old time.
[0:10:22 – 0:10:23] Erik: When did that come out?
[0:10:23 – 0:10:25] Erik: They don’t make movies like they used to.
[0:10:25 – 0:10:28] Erik: Like literally they don’t make movies like that anymore because.
[0:10:28 – 0:10:29] Adam: Because of the laws now.
[0:10:29 – 0:10:31] Erik: Just because of laws on how movies get made.
[0:10:32 – 0:10:39] Erik: You have to have at least 12 white men in a boardroom deciding as to whether or not this is going to appeal to the masses.
[0:10:41 – 0:10:54] Erik: And a lot of those fun ideas, they kind of get cut out and whittled down into a hive mind movie, which there’s still some good independent movies coming out out there, but nothing like Con Air.
[0:10:56 – 0:11:00] Erik: That was the Wild West of action movies from the 90s.
[0:11:00 – 0:11:01] Adam: Is that the golden age of cinema?
[0:11:02 – 0:11:03] Erik: Not the golden age.
[0:11:03 – 0:11:04] Erik: It was the peak of the wave.
[0:11:05 – 0:11:08] Erik: The peak of the wave of just anything goes action movies.
[0:11:09 – 0:11:10] Erik: Would they switch faces?
[0:11:11 – 0:11:13] Erik: Yes, they switch faces.
[0:11:13 – 0:11:14] Erik: I love it.
[0:11:14 – 0:11:15] Erik: Tell me more.
[0:11:15 – 0:11:19] Erik: And the wife doesn’t notice the difference in other parts on the body.
[0:11:22 – 0:11:23] Erik: Moving on.
[0:11:23 – 0:11:25] Adam: I got one question to start the show.
[0:11:26 – 0:11:26] Erik: One question?
[0:11:26 – 0:11:27] Adam: What are the Canadians doing?
[0:11:28 – 0:11:33] Adam: Does the book ever give you anything on the logistical response of our friends of the North?
[0:11:33 – 0:11:34] Erik: No, it never really does.
[0:11:35 – 0:11:35] Erik: What?
[0:11:35 – 0:11:38] Adam: The fire was like at least half in Canada.
[0:11:38 – 0:11:38] Erik: Yeah, for sure.
[0:11:39 – 0:11:39] Adam: But it was also… Where’s my map?
[0:11:40 – 0:11:41] Adam: Where is your map?
[0:11:41 – 0:11:42] Adam: What happened to that map?
[0:11:42 – 0:11:44] Erik: I think the map has been stowed.
[0:11:44 – 0:11:46] Erik: You’re just going to have to do without it.
[0:11:46 – 0:11:47] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:11:47 – 0:11:48] Erik: It’s funny.
[0:11:48 – 0:11:53] Erik: I think it mostly has to do with the fact that where that fire burned in Canada, there really was…
[0:11:53 – 0:11:53] Erik: There’s nothing.
[0:11:55 – 0:11:56] Erik: There’s no roads, really.
[0:11:56 – 0:12:00] Erik: There’s some distant fire… Or not fire, but logging roads.
[0:12:01 – 0:12:02] Erik: And…
[0:12:03 – 0:12:06] Erik: No structures as far as I could tell.
[0:12:06 – 0:12:08] Erik: I got some recon.
[0:12:08 – 0:12:12] Adam: There’s three structures on the north shore of Gunflint.
[0:12:12 – 0:12:14] Erik: The north shore of Gunflint, yeah, I guess.
[0:12:14 – 0:12:17] Adam: At the time of the fire, there’s three properties.
[0:12:18 – 0:12:22] Adam: I happen to work with someone who has one of those properties in their family.
[0:12:24 – 0:12:27] Adam: And I said, what were you up to when this was going on?
[0:12:27 – 0:12:30] Adam: And you still have trees around your place.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:31] Adam: How did that work?
[0:12:32 – 0:12:36] Adam: And she said, yeah, we were watching it from afar.
[0:12:37 – 0:12:37] Adam: They weren’t up there.
[0:12:38 – 0:12:47] Adam: They were aware of what was going on, and apparently the Canadians came in and set up pumps and sprayed the hell around all those cabins.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:58] Adam: There’s three different cabin properties on the North Shore, and they were able to save theirs and then their neighbor, the uncle, which is close to the Narrows there on the north side.
[0:12:58 – 0:13:05] Adam: And then there’s a third property down a ways, and there’s nothing they could do for that one.
[0:13:05 – 0:13:06] Adam: But they tried.
[0:13:06 – 0:13:06] Adam: Yeah.
[0:13:07 – 0:13:08] Erik: God bless those Canadians that tried.
[0:13:08 – 0:13:10] Adam: So they saved their family cabin.
[0:13:10 – 0:13:14] Adam: Because I was like, how is your cabin and all the trees around still okay after that?
[0:13:14 – 0:13:15] Adam: Because I was looking at the map last week.
[0:13:16 – 0:13:16] Adam: Nice, yeah.
[0:13:16 – 0:13:19] Adam: And it shows, yeah, anybody who’s been in gunpoint can see.
[0:13:20 – 0:13:21] Adam: Or up in the magnetic, you know.
[0:13:21 – 0:13:22] Adam: That whole thing got ripped.
[0:13:23 – 0:13:27] Adam: And they said, yeah, they were running pumps spraying around the place.
[0:13:27 – 0:13:29] Adam: And it protected it.
[0:13:29 – 0:13:30] Adam: It did their job.
[0:13:30 – 0:13:31] Adam: So they were able to save the structures.
[0:13:32 – 0:13:40] Adam: running pumps but yeah the third one didn’t get it now they’ve like rebuilt since where the third property was they there’s a couple of structures down there now
[0:13:40 – 0:13:51] Erik: Yeah, I forget there’s a number of places on the North Shore have gone fluent, which is kind of where this third part… Yeah, they can’t even go across because of COVID right now.
[0:13:51 – 0:13:53] Adam: They can’t even go across to check on their cabin.
[0:13:53 – 0:13:54] Erik: Yeah, that’s crazy.
[0:13:54 – 0:13:57] Adam: Any of those, I assume the rules are the same for all the SAG properties.
[0:13:58 – 0:13:58] Erik: Oh, I’m sure, yeah.
[0:13:58 – 0:14:04] Adam: You know, can’t go up and check on them, and it’s like, oh, apparently one of their neighbors did go and check on them, and…
[0:14:05 – 0:14:06] Adam: Eye in the Sky got them.
[0:14:06 – 0:14:06] Adam: Click.
[0:14:07 – 0:14:07] Adam: Wow.
[0:14:08 – 0:14:08] Adam: That’s a ticket.
[0:14:09 – 0:14:10] Adam: Crazy.
[0:14:10 – 0:14:11] Adam: Don’t think about it.
[0:14:11 – 0:14:17] Adam: Yeah, if anybody’s trying to get sneaky and just run her without an R-A-B-C this year, just be warned.
[0:14:18 – 0:14:19] Adam: They got the Eyes in the Skies.
[0:14:19 – 0:14:26] Erik: I remember during the Ham Lake fire going up to the mid-Gunflint Trail fire station to get like reports.
[0:14:27 – 0:14:36] Erik: We were hearing that like, because the farthest you could go up the trail was like to Clearwater Road or to that fire station, which is just a mile past Clearwater Road.
[0:14:37 – 0:14:45] Erik: But we were hearing reports that people who had cabins farther up the trail were pulling off and driving the snowmobile trail to get into their cabins.
[0:14:47 – 0:14:48] Erik: which would be pretty intense.
[0:14:48 – 0:14:48] Erik: Wow.
[0:14:49 – 0:14:54] Adam: Unless you had like a beefy truck, because those snowmobile trails are like… Those are not, yeah.
[0:14:55 – 0:14:56] Erik: Not very often.
[0:14:56 – 0:14:58] Erik: Yeah, very smooth for very long.
[0:14:58 – 0:14:59] Erik: Pretty rough.
[0:14:59 – 0:14:59] Erik: Yeah.
[0:15:01 – 0:15:02] Adam: Yeah.
[0:15:02 – 0:15:14] Adam: Anyways, I was just, like, I was talking to her at work the other day about this, and then it just got me thinking, like, I wonder how much of this book in part three they’re going to be, like, getting into the Canadian response on their side.
[0:15:14 – 0:15:16] Erik: There’s little to no information.
[0:15:16 – 0:15:17] Erik: Just let her rip.
[0:15:17 – 0:15:18] Adam: Just let her rip.
[0:15:18 – 0:15:22] Adam: We’ll maybe spray some cabins, but other than that, I don’t know how they got in there.
[0:15:23 – 0:15:25] Adam: They came in by seaplane and set this stuff up?
[0:15:25 – 0:15:25] Adam: Yeah.
[0:15:26 – 0:15:30] Adam: There is some logging roads back there, but, I mean, you wouldn’t want to be really driving on those.
[0:15:31 – 0:15:42] Erik: I’m sure Canada has a different approach to wildfire mitigation, especially considering the vast majority of their country is just, as far as the eye can see, forests.
[0:15:43 – 0:15:48] Erik: I know a lot of times you hear, like, some of those wildfires that aren’t, like, threatening structures or communities.
[0:15:48 – 0:15:48] Erik: Yeah.
[0:15:48 – 0:15:50] Erik: What’s the point in fighting that fire?
[0:15:50 – 0:15:57] Erik: Because by the time they’re going to need to harvest those trees for logging purposes, it will have grown back.
[0:15:57 – 0:15:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:15:58 – 0:16:03] Erik: It’s like, well, we’ll maybe in like 50 years we will get to those trees for logging.
[0:16:03 – 0:16:07] Erik: So there’s no reason to like bend our backs to like put out a fire that’s not threatening anything.
[0:16:08 – 0:16:14] Adam: I still have to think, like, Incident Command had sent a couple TPS reports up to the Canadians just saying, like, hey, here’s what’s going on down here.
[0:16:14 – 0:16:16] Adam: We got some spotting.
[0:16:16 – 0:16:18] Adam: We got a running crown fire, et cetera.
[0:16:18 – 0:16:20] Adam: This is a level two now, over and out.
[0:16:21 – 0:16:22] Erik: It’s no campfire.
[0:16:22 – 0:16:25] Erik: This is no campfire.
[0:16:26 – 0:16:33] Adam: You know, they’re probably at least talking on the ham radio frequencies using the nodules and adjustments of the frequencies and so forth.
[0:16:34 – 0:16:35] Erik: Using the nodules?
[0:16:35 – 0:16:38] Adam: The ham radio community just hates us at this point.
[0:16:38 – 0:16:40] Adam: We’re losing listeners left and right.
[0:16:41 – 0:16:41] Adam: Ham radio jokes.
[0:16:42 – 0:16:42] Erik: Have to stop, guys.
[0:16:44 – 0:16:47] Adam: Okay, anyways, that was my only question I had for this week.
[0:16:47 – 0:16:50] Adam: I can’t wait to find out what happens.
[0:16:50 – 0:16:51] Adam: And I was not.
[0:16:51 – 0:16:53] Adam: I was camped on Cross Bay Lake.
[0:16:53 – 0:16:54] Adam: I wasn’t on ham.
[0:16:55 – 0:16:57] Adam: Just for the record.
[0:16:57 – 0:16:58] Erik: I believe you.
[0:16:59 – 0:17:11] Erik: So as the chaotic scene continued to unfold, with reports of fires burning close to the Gunflint Trail, firefighting was happening on the ground, mostly only from the air, with little to no success in controlling the fire.
[0:17:12 – 0:17:27] Erik: The Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department was in charge of enforcing the evacuation order from Round Lake Road to the end of the trail, and had a goal of alerting anybody of the order and posting signage at any crossroads with instructions on how to evacuate.
[0:17:28 – 0:17:32] Erik: It was a massive undertaking that is explained well by Carrie J. Griffith.
[0:17:32 – 0:17:33] Erik: Again, Gunflint Burning.
[0:17:35 – 0:17:37] Adam: The J stands for judicious.
[0:17:37 – 0:17:38] Erik: Judicious.
[0:17:38 – 0:17:41] Erik: Fire in the Boundary Waters is our source material.
[0:17:41 – 0:17:42] Erik: Thank you, Carrie.
[0:17:44 – 0:17:57] Erik: And this evacuation order and how the volunteer fire department had to go to essentially every address is one of the many moments of kind of heroic action
[0:17:58 – 0:18:27] Erik: that was taking place during a truly spiraling out of control event um couldn’t imagine even though like we said the silver lining of that time of year is there weren’t very many people up at the end of the gunflint trail but that also on the flip side meant that many sprinkler systems were not operational yeah i mean we’re did even a lot of the places have sprinkler systems at the time my understanding was that after this that that’s when there’s a real boom in sprinkler sales
[0:18:27 – 0:18:29] Erik: Well, it wasn’t necessarily even sales.
[0:18:29 – 0:18:32] Erik: It was after that fire that the, I think it was a government grant.
[0:18:33 – 0:18:33] Erik: Oh.
[0:18:34 – 0:18:40] Erik: Basically said like, we will install these for free or you can pay.
[0:18:40 – 0:18:42] Adam: They definitely don’t have listening devices in them.
[0:18:42 – 0:18:42] Adam: Yeah.
[0:18:42 – 0:18:45] Erik: You can pay like $200 more a month in your home insurance.
[0:18:46 – 0:18:48] Erik: So it’s like, well, why wouldn’t I want to get the.
[0:18:48 – 0:18:50] Adam: The sprinklers were the original 5G towers.
[0:18:51 – 0:18:52] Adam: Just saying.
[0:18:52 – 0:18:53] Erik: Just saying.
[0:18:53 – 0:19:01] Erik: Tom Lynch of the U.S. Forest Service attempted to start a burnout slash bulldoze line around the Blankenburg pit near Segal Lake.
[0:19:02 – 0:19:10] Erik: Unfortunately, they were unable to coordinate with water drops to suppress the fire from planes because the smoke was too thick to navigate to their exact location.
[0:19:12 – 0:19:16] Erik: We’re getting spotting way beyond what the analysis predicted, Tom said.
[0:19:17 – 0:19:22] Erik: With regard to spotting, there is something called the probability of ignition, or POI.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:28] Erik: In order for fire spotting to occur, you need an ember, a transport medium, and a receptive field.
[0:19:29 – 0:19:39] Erik: The Birchbark fire brands were perfect embers, and the wind was a perfect transport medium, and the area was so dry, anywhere the ember landed, it ignited.
[0:19:40 – 0:19:44] Erik: We could do the math on the percentage POI, but we didn’t need to because it was 100%.
[0:19:45 – 0:19:46] Erik: Everything that landed caught fire.
[0:19:48 – 0:19:48] Adam: That’s 100.
[0:19:49 – 0:19:51] Erik: 100% POI.
[0:19:52 – 0:19:55] Erik: I remember pulling into that gravel pit with Tom Lynch and his engines there.
[0:19:55 – 0:19:57] Erik: We’re called Barb Thompson.
[0:19:57 – 0:20:00] Erik: She was one of the head fire chiefs.
[0:20:00 – 0:20:06] Erik: Not fire chiefs, but she was one of the people that started the fires to make a break.
[0:20:06 – 0:20:08] Erik: I forgot what they called it.
[0:20:08 – 0:20:08] Erik: Back burn.
[0:20:08 – 0:20:09] Erik: They called it.
[0:20:09 – 0:20:32] Erik: a fire boss that’s what it was and yes a backburn um nailed it she says i remember being surrounded by fire and thinking it was crazy fire behavior as the spotting and fire continued the air grew heavier with smoke and ash the overhead air attack still could not find them they began to realize the landscape and fire were becoming too threatening to continue the operation
[0:20:33 – 0:20:34] Erik: The area was becoming too compromised.
[0:20:35 – 0:20:40] Erik: Because the wind was so strong, spotting was happening more than a quarter mile ahead of the flames.
[0:20:40 – 0:20:44] Erik: It was a dangerous situation and they needed to get out immediately.
[0:20:45 – 0:20:55] Erik: While they were deciding to leave, a dozer on a truck and low boy turned off the trail onto the lane and drove a hundred yards up the road, turning at the corner.
[0:20:56 – 0:21:07] Erik: Tom halted it at the turn, realizing the lane was now blocked, and with his team and his vehicles behind him ready to get out, the fire was spotting all around them.
[0:21:08 – 0:21:10] Erik: Tom was suddenly worried and angry.
[0:21:11 – 0:21:13] Erik: There were ditches on either side of the narrow road.
[0:21:14 – 0:21:23] Erik: If the dozer transport rig went into a ditch and jackknifed, five engines and three trucks could be in jeopardy, not to mention their drivers and operators.
[0:21:23 – 0:21:28] Erik: He had not ordered the dozer, and now the huge machine was blocking their exit.
[0:21:28 – 0:21:32] Erik: Some of the new firefighters were clearly alarmed.
[0:21:33 – 0:21:35] Adam: Who the hell put this dozer in my lane?
[0:21:35 – 0:21:36] Adam: Grrrr.
[0:21:36 – 0:21:37] Adam: I didn’t order this dozer.
[0:21:37 – 0:21:38] Adam: Who filed this report?
[0:21:38 – 0:21:40] Adam: We got to get a hold of HQ.
[0:21:41 – 0:21:44] Adam: Make sure we go up the chain of command and we’re getting an answer.
[0:21:45 – 0:21:45] Adam: Did they get an answer?
[0:21:46 – 0:21:50] Erik: At the time, I don’t think they were really too worried about getting a specific answer.
[0:21:50 – 0:21:55] Adam: You’re not allowed to pass the dozer without the proper paperwork, actually.
[0:21:55 – 0:22:01] Adam: So you’re going to have to wait up here for a level three dozer boss to get back to us.
[0:22:03 – 0:22:06] Erik: The engines all managed to exit.
[0:22:06 – 0:22:10] Erik: Tim Norman and Barb Thompson left, and then it was just Tom and Greg Peterson.
[0:22:11 – 0:22:17] Erik: Greg stopped, looked at Tom, and said, quote, we’re going to lose some homes today.
[0:22:17 – 0:22:26] Erik: It was a fateful, dire comment, but given the chaos they were now experiencing, it was difficult to imagine the day progressing without structures being lost.
[0:22:27 – 0:22:34] Erik: Greg had been fighting fires for many years, but he was not sure he had ever seen a fire so out of control near so many structures.
[0:22:36 – 0:22:38] Adam: I’m thinking like Jeff Goldblum for Greg.
[0:22:39 – 0:22:40] Erik: We’re going to lose some homes today.
[0:22:42 – 0:22:42] Erik: Yes.
[0:22:43 – 0:22:45] Erik: But we’re not going to lose people.
[0:22:48 – 0:23:00] Erik: At 1210 p.m., Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department truck reported fire is crossing the Gunflint Trail, which was the first definitive breakthrough of the front line of the firefight.
[0:23:01 – 0:23:08] Erik: She also prompted the county to request power being shut off to the end of the trail to keep from downed power lines becoming a further danger.
[0:23:10 – 0:23:23] Erik: Around this time, local resident Michael Valentini had made his way up the trail to help with the fight, specifically because of his expertise in setting up and maintaining sprinkler systems to suppress fire on and around structures.
[0:23:23 – 0:23:26] Erik: He lived at the end of the trail, and all of his supplies were there.
[0:23:27 – 0:23:39] Erik: He stopped at the Siegel Guard Station to reconnoiter with the Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire Department with the situation and was told he had to wait before heading any further because the fire was active on and around the highway.
[0:23:40 – 0:23:50] Erik: Just moments after he was given the go-ahead from the air, they then radioed back and said that he needed to hold up because it was firing back up again, but it was too late and he was already on his way.
[0:23:52 – 0:23:54] Erik: Again, we don’t have time.
[0:23:54 – 0:23:55] Erik: We don’t want to hang up Tim.
[0:23:55 – 0:23:59] Erik: This would be another great set piece that you can just see right from a movie.
[0:23:59 – 0:24:00] Erik: This is directly from the book.
[0:24:01 – 0:24:05] Erik: Michael had traveled this road on countless occasions, but never in conditions like these.
[0:24:05 – 0:24:09] Erik: As he moved forward, he was shocked by the fire on both sides of the road.
[0:24:09 – 0:24:12] Erik: Peripheral trees and brush were flaming.
[0:24:13 – 0:24:19] Erik: His windows were closed, but through it, he could feel the ambient heat intense in the early afternoon.
[0:24:20 – 0:24:24] Erik: If he got stranded here, he would never be able to get out of his truck.
[0:24:25 – 0:24:28] Erik: If he had had time to think about it, he would have worried.
[0:24:28 – 0:24:32] Erik: But right now, he was just trying to get through the tunnel of flame.
[0:24:33 – 0:24:37] Erik: He watched trees that went up in a whoosh and then continued to burn in pillars of fire.
[0:24:38 – 0:24:39] Erik: The drive was intense.
[0:24:40 – 0:24:46] Erik: The ambient heat through his windshield and side became so hot he could feel it on the side of his face and shoulder.
[0:24:46 – 0:24:52] Erik: While he was pushing through the area, he thought, My God, how bad does it have to get before they say you can’t go through?
[0:24:53 – 0:24:55] Erik: He thought that they shouldn’t have let him drive in conditions like these.
[0:24:56 – 0:24:57] Adam: Oh, somebody let him through?
[0:24:57 – 0:24:57] Adam: Well, yeah.
[0:24:57 – 0:24:59] Adam: They were like watching him.
[0:24:59 – 0:24:59] Adam: So he just drove in there.
[0:24:59 – 0:25:04] Erik: No, he stopped at the Seagull Guard Station and they were like, no, you can’t go through right now.
[0:25:04 – 0:25:04] Erik: Yeah.
[0:25:04 – 0:25:07] Erik: And he was sitting there waiting and they were like…
[0:25:08 – 0:25:31] Erik: you know do you really have to go up and like he’s like well i can get i can get these sprinkler systems started up at the end of the gunflint trail and they’re like okay so like you’ve got you can go if it’s safe and they kind of kept checking in with these people flying around and they were like okay it’s good to go and then he took off and then like 30 seconds later they were like oh no it’s bad again but he was gone already just heading into the heading into the fray
[0:25:33 – 0:25:42] Erik: So finally, after 300 yards consumed by keeping his truck away from the edges of flame, he had lost track of how much distance he had cover.
[0:25:43 – 0:25:47] Erik: He had come out the other side and all he could think of was, wow, I made it.
[0:25:47 – 0:25:51] Erik: And he kept driving up the trail, still stunned by his drive through the gauntlet of fire.
[0:25:53 – 0:25:58] Erik: And then he went about setting up as many sprinkler systems he could get his hands on at the end of the Gunflint Trail.
[0:25:58 – 0:26:02] Erik: Again, another heroic act in a dire situation to save other people’s property.
[0:26:04 – 0:26:06] Erik: Back at the incident command post at Siegel.
[0:26:06 – 0:26:09] Adam: I’m thinking like Timothy Chalamet for Valentini.
[0:26:10 – 0:26:11] Erik: Who’s that again?
[0:26:11 – 0:26:15] Adam: He’s the young, good-looking one.
[0:26:16 – 0:26:18] Erik: Just in general, the young, good-looking one?
[0:26:18 – 0:26:18] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:18 – 0:26:19] Erik: Okay.
[0:26:19 – 0:26:21] Adam: He’s a hero of this story, obviously.
[0:26:22 – 0:26:24] Adam: Like Michael Valentini.
[0:26:24 – 0:26:26] Erik: Both of those names kind of sound familiar.
[0:26:26 – 0:26:29] Adam: You don’t know who Timothee Chalamet is?
[0:26:29 – 0:26:31] Adam: I’m sure I would recognize him.
[0:26:31 – 0:26:33] Erik: The name doesn’t ring a bell, no.
[0:26:33 – 0:26:33] Adam: I have no idea what it is.
[0:26:33 – 0:26:35] Adam: I think he’s in the Transformers movies.
[0:26:35 – 0:26:36] Adam: I have no idea.
[0:26:38 – 0:26:40] Adam: He was on Saturday Night Live a couple weeks ago.
[0:26:40 – 0:26:42] Adam: I have no idea what he’s in.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:43] Adam: He was hot.
[0:26:44 – 0:26:44] Erik: All right.
[0:26:44 – 0:26:46] Adam: Well, I’m glad you brought his name up.
[0:26:46 – 0:26:47] Adam: Really, really good looking.
[0:26:47 – 0:26:48] Adam: I’ll find a picture of him for you.
[0:26:48 – 0:26:51] Erik: You find a picture of it and just flash it to me in an opportune time.
[0:26:51 – 0:26:53] Adam: Try and contain yourself.
[0:26:53 – 0:26:53] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:55 – 0:26:56] Erik: And you listeners out there.
[0:26:56 – 0:26:59] Adam: This is funny because I know who Valentini is.
[0:26:59 – 0:26:59] Adam: All right.
[0:26:59 – 0:27:01] Adam: So if you knew, you know, whatever.
[0:27:01 – 0:27:09] Erik: And if you’re listening at home, try to pick up on when Adam shows me this picture of the actor that I’m sure I will know.
[0:27:09 – 0:27:11] Adam: The first Timothy it brings up is Timothy McVeigh.
[0:27:11 – 0:27:13] Erik: Oh no, that’s the first Timothy?
[0:27:14 – 0:27:14] Adam: Come on, Google.
[0:27:15 – 0:27:23] Erik: Back at the ICP, the Seagull Guard Station was determined that all non-essential personnel and equipment needed to be evacuated.
[0:27:23 – 0:27:24] Erik: Yeah, that’s him.
[0:27:25 – 0:27:29] Erik: And that the fire should be considered to be upgraded to a Type 1 incident.
[0:27:30 – 0:27:40] Erik: On top of the increase in the number of people, planes, and resources pouring into the area, the now pretty well-known eventuality of the fire crossing over into Canada added to the complexity.
[0:27:41 – 0:27:50] Erik: At 3.30 p.m., the first reported structure was lost to fire, and by 4 o’clock, five more had been lost, all on Segal Lake Road.
[0:27:51 – 0:27:59] Erik: Throughout the day, Tom Lynch, Mike Prom, Michael Valentini, and many others were doing what they could to get structure sprinkler systems operational.
[0:28:00 – 0:28:05] Erik: As the day progressed, Tom and his fire engines were seeing more spotting activity at the end of the trail.
[0:28:06 – 0:28:10] Erik: In fact, Tom was largely manning the radio, keeping everyone in the loop.
[0:28:15 – 0:28:21] Erik: Tom knew from speaking with Tim and others the main flame front was still south of the Gunflint Trail but approaching.
[0:28:22 – 0:28:26] Erik: At the end of the trail, where he and his crew were, they were encountering heavy spotting.
[0:28:26 – 0:28:33] Erik: It was only a matter of time before the fire reached them, though that should be much later in the day or early Monday.
[0:28:33 – 0:28:36] Erik: They continued to douse spot fires all around the end of the Gunflint Trail.
[0:28:37 – 0:28:40] Erik: Tom knew they were making an impact on the spot fires.
[0:28:40 – 0:28:43] Erik: Every time they occurred, they were knocking them down.
[0:28:43 – 0:28:50] Erik: He had worked his way through the trails and campground, dousing spot fires, but by the time he made the circle, he needed to do it all over again.
[0:28:51 – 0:28:53] Erik: This was the end of the Gunflint Trail.
[0:28:54 – 0:28:56] Erik: From here, there were only two ways to escape.
[0:28:57 – 0:29:04] Erik: They could drive down the Gunflint Trail, and providing the trail was not blocked by flame, get back to the ICP, which was now moved to Gunflint Lodge.
[0:29:05 – 0:29:10] Erik: However, from reports Tom and others on his team were getting, they knew the trail was in places already compromised.
[0:29:11 – 0:29:19] Erik: So, they also considered doing the unthinkable, abandoning their engines and heading out onto the water.
[0:29:20 – 0:29:21] Erik: Onto the sea.
[0:29:21 – 0:29:22] Erik: Onto the sea.
[0:29:23 – 0:29:42] Erik: It never actually came to a full water evacuation as they retreated to Seagull Canoe Outfitters, where the large open parking area provided a bit of buffer and an area to keep themselves protected from the oncoming head of the fire.
[0:29:44 – 0:29:45] Adam: Cripes.
[0:29:45 – 0:29:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:46 – 0:29:48] Erik: Meanwhile, in the air.
[0:29:49 – 0:29:55] Erik: To get a clear sense of where the fire was, the pilot could fly high up above the smoke plume or try to get under it.
[0:29:57 – 0:30:07] Erik: From that vantage point, Jody, lead home, might be able to determine the fire’s head, speed, and direction, and what other structures might be in danger.
[0:30:09 – 0:30:19] Erik: I asked some of the tanker pilots to see what they could see up there, Jody remembered, because they have heavy airplanes, and none of them said they could and nor would they.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:24] Erik: It was too smoky, turbulent, and dangerous.
[0:30:25 – 0:30:33] Erik: Then Jody radioed John Bell, the chief pilot at the time, who was also near the top of the huge and growing smoke plume.
[0:30:34 – 0:30:37] Erik: Jody asked if he would go in and do some recon.
[0:30:38 – 0:30:40] Erik: I’ll see what I can do, John radioed back.
[0:30:41 – 0:30:48] Erik: I watched him pull his nose onto the right shoulder where the flank turned into the head and he poked his nose in there.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:52] Erik: Then I watched him make a hard right turn and he called me back.
[0:30:53 – 0:30:54] Erik: Jody, I can’t get in there.
[0:30:54 – 0:30:55] Erik: No way.
[0:30:55 – 0:31:01] Erik: The wind is so strong and the column is rising because the major crown fire, but it’s blowing horizontally.
[0:31:02 – 0:31:08] Erik: Even for a 35,000 pound airplane, Jody explained, he wasn’t going in there.
[0:31:10 – 0:31:10] Erik: What they could not see…
[0:31:32 – 0:31:40] Erik: was that the fire was burning so intensely there were actually two heads to it, both contributing to the huge smoke plume.
[0:31:40 – 0:31:46] Erik: As soon as they turned, the largest of the two columns appeared directly in front of them like a thick smoke wall.
[0:31:47 – 0:31:55] Erik: The wall came up so suddenly the pilot did not have time to turn or dive, and suddenly they passed through its edge, and they were blind.”
[0:31:56 – 0:31:57] Erik: The only thing they could see was smoke.
[0:31:58 – 0:32:00] Erik: Inside the cockpit, they watched their instruments.
[0:32:00 – 0:32:05] Erik: The altimeter was telling the story of a wild ride up the smoke column.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:13] Erik: They were caught in the smoke-filled updraft of wind and hot air, and in less than a minute, their beachcraft rose 1,000 feet.
[0:32:14 – 0:32:22] Erik: It is never a good idea to go into a major smoke column for fear of losing an engine or becoming inverted and completely losing control of the aircraft.
[0:32:23 – 0:32:25] Erik: Finally, they rose high enough so the column began to thin.
[0:32:26 – 0:32:31] Erik: As soon as they hit the less turbulent air, Jody’s cell phone flew out of his pocket and everything in the plane was tossed.
[0:32:32 – 0:32:38] Erik: Due to this sudden extreme acceleration and then deceleration, everything in the plane was, for a moment, suspended and weightless.
[0:32:39 – 0:32:40] Erik: It was chaos.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:45] Erik: But once the pilot regained control of his aircraft, they moved off into clear, thankfully…
[0:32:47 – 0:32:56] Erik: And frankly lucky, the path of their blind, wild ride was void of anything that could have brought them both to a sudden explosive end.
[0:32:58 – 0:33:08] Erik: That’s a pretty intense story, I think, from the fire of being in one of those planes and ending up in a major uprising event coming from the fire.
[0:33:09 – 0:33:16] Adam: I was thinking of, like, you can’t fly a plane over the top of a volcano because the ash will mess up the engines or whatever.
[0:33:16 – 0:33:16] Adam: Yeah.
[0:33:17 – 0:33:19] Adam: But this is not the same kind of plume.
[0:33:20 – 0:33:24] Adam: I don’t think the particles… You don’t want to be in there, but it’s not going to, like, shut your engine down.
[0:33:24 – 0:33:26] Erik: Yeah, it won’t shut the engine down for sure.
[0:33:26 – 0:33:27] Adam: Or, like, shred your blades.
[0:33:27 – 0:33:32] Erik: Yeah, I mean, the difference between volcanoes and the fire is, like, what’s in the smoke.
[0:33:33 – 0:33:35] Adam: But still, that can’t be good for your beach craft.
[0:33:36 – 0:33:41] Erik: No, going from rising a thousand feet in a minute to just stopping rising.
[0:33:41 – 0:33:49] Erik: I’m sure it’s like the same feeling as like those planes that do it on purpose to train like NASA astronauts where they give you that weightlessness for…
[0:33:50 – 0:33:52] Erik: Like 30 seconds or whatever?
[0:33:52 – 0:33:52] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:33:53 – 0:33:54] Erik: Yeah.
[0:33:55 – 0:34:04] Erik: As the day transitioned to night at Seagull Canoe Outfitters, an incredible effort was about to unfold, mostly to the south, but at the same time all around.
[0:34:04 – 0:34:05] Erik: The firefighters at the Outfitters fire…
[0:34:07 – 0:34:08] Erik: fires were sprouting up.
[0:34:09 – 0:34:20] Erik: As Dan Grindy from the Division B team arrived on the scene, he noted how everything looked like it was covered in snow from the C-215s dropping water mixed with detergent.
[0:34:21 – 0:34:21] Erik: And the mud.
[0:34:21 – 0:34:23] Erik: This is sort of like that mud.
[0:34:23 – 0:34:24] Erik: I think it’s a little different.
[0:34:24 – 0:34:26] Erik: It kind of makes like a thick foam.
[0:34:27 – 0:34:28] Erik: This is the squishy mud.
[0:34:29 – 0:34:30] Erik: The squishy mud.
[0:34:30 – 0:34:33] Erik: Dan, you may be on the B team, but you’re the B team leader.
[0:34:34 – 0:34:55] Erik: be team leader as dan neared seagull canoe outfitters he recalled the chaos of the scene i remember driving up the gunflint and there was fire running through the crowns and some propane tanks started to blow luckily seagull canoe had a big parking lot beside it this was the area where dan tom and dan bauman and others with their trucks could set up and begin to work
[0:34:56 – 0:35:24] Erik: yeah the idea of like and this was a common theme towards the end of this book was describing um people that were on the ground describing hearing like just propane tanks exploding all around it would just be such an ominous thing to like again if this was a movie I could see that being a very impactful yeah like just things exploding all around you like you can never calm your nerves um I always pictured it just going through like a wave
[0:35:25 – 0:35:33] Adam: you know, and it goes through and then it’s by, but the way you’re describing it in the book here, it’s just, it’s just fire everywhere.
[0:35:33 – 0:35:33] Adam: Yeah.
[0:35:33 – 0:35:35] Adam: There’s not, uh, it’s behind you.
[0:35:35 – 0:35:36] Adam: It’s in front of you.
[0:35:36 – 0:35:37] Adam: It’s coming from this way.
[0:35:37 – 0:35:39] Adam: It’s going that way, but it’s everywhere.
[0:35:39 – 0:35:47] Erik: Well, yeah, especially with the spotting where you’re like putting out the fires that are starting ahead of the actual fire and then hoping that, uh,
[0:35:48 – 0:35:52] Erik: Yeah, the main part of the fire, but you have an understanding of that that’s what it is.
[0:35:52 – 0:35:53] Erik: Is this the head of the fire?
[0:35:54 – 0:35:55] Erik: Is this just spotting?
[0:35:55 – 0:36:02] Erik: And then with the planes, they didn’t even know that there was two running heads of this fire right away.
[0:36:03 – 0:36:08] Erik: To be able to get that information to the people on the ground, yeah, it’s just general.
[0:36:09 – 0:36:10] Adam: They probably should not have been in front of it.
[0:36:10 – 0:36:20] Erik: general chaos, but I mean, they, I mean, they were able to protect seagull canoe outfitters and a number of, a number, a ton of buildings.
[0:36:21 – 0:36:23] Erik: Um, so, um,
[0:36:24 – 0:36:27] Erik: I’m not sure which Dan this quote comes from.
[0:36:27 – 0:36:27] Erik: It just says Dan.
[0:36:28 – 0:36:29] Erik: A couple of Dans in the story at this point.
[0:36:29 – 0:36:31] Erik: But fire was coming through the crowns up on a hill.
[0:36:32 – 0:36:41] Erik: I remember as I was driving up and in my mind I thought that the hoses, sorry, the house across from the seagull canoe outfitters was a goner as the crown fire approached.
[0:36:41 – 0:36:42] Erik: There was a structure team up there.
[0:36:43 – 0:36:49] Erik: and Tom Lynch got them set up, and they were able to knock the fire down in front of the house up on the hill.
[0:36:50 – 0:36:57] Erik: The fire spotted on the backside and started to run up the hill again toward the house, but the team was able to knock it down.
[0:36:58 – 0:37:02] Erik: That parking lot gave us room so that we could work and not be in too much danger.
[0:37:03 – 0:37:10] Erik: By now, there were approximately eight vehicles at the Outfitters, several of them Type 6 lines and spreading them everywhere.
[0:37:11 – 0:37:14] Erik: In a very real sense, fire was falling out of the sky.
[0:37:15 – 0:37:26] Erik: As the sun set, and already muted by the amount of smoke coming from the south, a major battle unfolded at Seagull Canoe Outfitters.
[0:37:27 – 0:37:29] Erik: Not long after they arrived, the front of the flame hit them.
[0:37:30 – 0:37:36] Erik: Hoses were spread across the area like a latticework of heavy, flexible pipes, every one of them thick with water.
[0:37:38 – 0:37:47] Erik: Bob Baker was stationed atop the eastern bunkhouse, shooting a steady stream of water at the large approaching wall of flames.
[0:37:48 – 0:37:54] Erik: As the fire roared toward them, their efforts began to bend the fire so that it passed around and over them.
[0:37:55 – 0:38:01] Erik: Everywhere any spot fire dropped, it was snuffed by the massive amount of water now pulsing over the property and buildings.
[0:38:02 – 0:38:12] Erik: It had truly been a heroic effort to knock it all down and bend the fire to water’s will.
[0:38:13 – 0:38:16] Erik: Again, from Tom, spot fires were everywhere.
[0:38:16 – 0:38:19] Erik: Firefighters were on the tops of buildings.
[0:38:20 – 0:38:24] Erik: Bob Baker was on top of the east side of the trail standing on a bunkhouse roof.
[0:38:25 – 0:38:28] Erik: We had quite a few people down on the west side trying to save the Kevlar canoes.
[0:38:29 – 0:38:34] Erik: The radiant heat was extreme, but we were able to corral the fire around Seagull Outfitters buildings.
[0:38:35 – 0:38:37] Erik: We were able to steer the fire around.
[0:38:38 – 0:38:39] Erik: Everyone was fighting the fire.
[0:38:40 – 0:38:44] Erik: Whoever was up at the end of the trail was in that parking lot at Seagull Canoe.
[0:38:48 – 0:39:13] Erik: Um, so late in the day on Sunday, May 6th, the number of buildings that had been lost to the fire, um, in the shuffle of madness and the realization that the Seagull guard station was under considerable threat, um, from, from the fire was made not to diminish the loss of any structures, but the importance of the buildings and the infrastructure at the guard station cannot be overstated in their importance to continue to fight the fire.
[0:39:14 – 0:39:14] Erik: The,
[0:39:14 – 0:39:23] Erik: Two 15s, the P3s, focused all of their energy on dropping loads of water and retardant on the area around the guard station.
[0:39:24 – 0:39:33] Erik: And in another attempt to protect the station, an almost unheard of night burnout operation began at around 8.40 p.m. Ooh.
[0:39:33 – 0:39:34] Erik: Yeah.
[0:39:34 – 0:39:36] Erik: Two hours later, they lost the line.
[0:39:37 – 0:39:39] Erik: And this is a quote from Vance Hazleton.
[0:39:41 – 0:39:41] Adam: Yes.
[0:39:41 – 0:39:42] Erik: Yeah.
[0:39:42 – 0:39:44] Erik: I don’t know exactly what his…
[0:39:46 – 0:39:48] Erik: I think he was one of the newer…
[0:39:48 – 0:39:52] Erik: The new recruit?
[0:39:52 – 0:40:00] Erik: Well, since the fire had been upgraded, I think he’s just like a more advanced firefighter in charge.
[0:40:01 – 0:40:07] Erik: Burnout operations had been called off because we were getting spread thin and were unable to hold the line.
[0:40:07 – 0:40:13] Erik: We eventually started to get multiple spot fires within the immediate footprint of the guard station compound.
[0:40:14 – 0:40:18] Erik: At one point, I believe I counted about 10 to 15 spot fires near the compound.
[0:40:19 – 0:40:24] Erik: We had people running everywhere attempting to catch the spots in the darkness, but more just kept popping up.
[0:40:25 – 0:40:29] Erik: Tom called Vance and asked how many spot fires he was seeing.
[0:40:29 – 0:40:30] Erik: 10 to 15, Vance said.
[0:40:31 – 0:40:32] Erik: How many are you handling?
[0:40:33 – 0:40:33] Erik: About four.
[0:40:35 – 0:40:36] Adam: Vance Hazleton.
[0:40:36 – 0:40:36] Adam: Ha!
[0:40:37 – 0:40:45] Erik: It took until 1230 a.m. that night to secure the perimeter around the station, even with sprinklers running the whole time with pumps from Larch Creek.
[0:40:46 – 0:40:51] Adam: That’s why the beavers in Larch Creek got those glowing eyes these days from all the mud they dropped down there.
[0:40:55 – 0:40:56] Adam: This is some tough beaver dams.
[0:40:57 – 0:40:57] Erik: They are.
[0:40:57 – 0:40:59] Erik: You don’t want to drop a toddler in there.
[0:41:01 – 0:41:01] Adam: They’ll flip a boat.
[0:41:02 – 0:41:14] Erik: From there, the crew needed to move back down the trail to keep another fire from crossing the Gunflint Trail near Round Lake, which if it had crossed could circle around and further endanger teams at the end of the trail and along the way.
[0:41:16 – 0:41:22] Erik: With so much wind, flames were hitting the sides of our vehicles when we were driving past that stuff, Tom said.
[0:41:23 – 0:41:28] Erik: He was in the passenger side of the vehicle, so the direction of the wind was more or less coming directly at him.
[0:41:29 – 0:41:35] Erik: My window was rolled up, and I had to hold my hand up in front of my face to shield it from the radiant heat coming through the glass.
[0:41:36 – 0:41:42] Erik: We had to stop a couple of times because there were flames going across the road as we were trying to get through that stretch.
[0:41:42 – 0:41:47] Erik: I remember looking in my rearview mirror, and there was a dozen with a transport.
[0:41:50 – 0:41:55] Erik: It was taking direct flame impingement on the side of the dozer as we were trying to get through there.
[0:41:57 – 0:42:03] Erik: The wind was blowing the fire like a bellows, and the heavy licks of flame threatened the vehicles in the caravan.
[0:42:04 – 0:42:07] Erik: We were like, holy crap, explained Tom.
[0:42:07 – 0:42:09] Erik: It was hot and sketchy getting through there.
[0:42:10 – 0:42:14] Erik: Finally, they arrived at the part of the trail not yet breached, and they began to work.
[0:42:15 – 0:42:19] Erik: The wind was so strong, the fighters had to be careful with the burnout.
[0:42:19 – 0:42:23] Erik: The hotshot squad had flare guns and handheld drip torches.
[0:42:23 – 0:42:28] Erik: To draw the fire away from the road, they first needed to create an interior fire off the road.
[0:42:29 – 0:42:32] Erik: Using the flare guns, they set fires well away from the blacktop.
[0:42:33 – 0:42:37] Erik: Those fires created updrafts that drew well away from the blacktop.
[0:42:38 – 0:42:47] Erik: Those fires created updrafts that, sorry, uh, with the interior fires burning, the hotshots could use the handheld drip torches to light fires near the road.
[0:42:47 – 0:42:51] Erik: Once lit, those fires would burn toward the interior rather than away from it.
[0:42:52 – 0:42:56] Erik: We completed the burnout at three that morning, remembered, uh,
[0:42:58 – 0:43:24] Erik: tom sorry and that held for the rest of the fire finally after a very long day for almost everyone working on the burnout they stepped away from the line and bedded down at 4 a.m does the fire make its own wind night i assume it’s like there’s this original wind and then you get these fires going it’s got only either amplify or like make it sounds like the wind’s going every direction
[0:43:25 – 0:43:29] Erik: Yeah, I mean, I’m assuming that fire creates its own weather.
[0:43:29 – 0:43:33] Adam: They’re just talking about putting these burns in to draw the fire towards itself.
[0:43:34 – 0:43:37] Adam: Use the fire against itself.
[0:43:38 – 0:43:41] Adam: Tom’s just taking the fire and slapping itself in the face.
[0:43:41 – 0:43:42] Adam: Why are you hitting yourself, fire?
[0:43:43 – 0:43:44] Adam: Quit hitting yourself.
[0:43:45 – 0:43:52] Erik: Yeah, the whole science behind like burnouts and backburns and making breaks and stuff.
[0:43:53 – 0:43:55] Erik: I just… Dozer lines.
[0:43:55 – 0:43:59] Erik: Yeah, give me a bulldozer and or a shovel and just tell me what to do.
[0:43:59 – 0:44:05] Erik: Don’t put me in charge of trying to figure out how to make that make sense because it seems like a lot of times…
[0:44:07 – 0:44:15] Erik: Even when you put in all the work, it still doesn’t work to help break and or skew the direction of the fire.
[0:44:17 – 0:44:20] Erik: And we’ll get to another big one of those here in a second.
[0:44:20 – 0:44:26] Erik: The light of day on Monday, May 7th at the end of the Gunflint Trail revealed a scene of blackened hills…
[0:44:27 – 0:44:39] Erik: piles of ash and rubble, the stench of char in the air, and the sleep-deprived, disheveled few firefighters and civilians who protected numerous structures at their own peril.
[0:44:40 – 0:44:47] Erik: Most of the individuals involved in the past 24 hours had experienced a once-in-a-lifetime moment that they would not easily forget.
[0:44:47 – 0:44:50] Erik: This is a quote directly from
[0:44:55 – 0:44:56] Erik: The book here.
[0:44:56 – 0:45:07] Erik: Through this landscape, Sheriff Falk from Cook County Law Enforcement was driving north, nosing up to the end of the trail to make sure no one was in harm’s way.
[0:45:08 – 0:45:15] Erik: Through this desolation, Tom Lynch was driving south, nosing down the trail to make sure no one was in harm’s way.
[0:45:16 – 0:45:24] Erik: Both were moving slowly along the trail, stunned by the acrid landscape, the ashes, so many structures gone, so much devastation.
[0:45:26 – 0:45:30] Erik: Neither could believe the destruction that had blown through this sacred place.
[0:45:31 – 0:45:34] Erik: People had been visiting the end of the Gunflint Trail for many years.
[0:45:35 – 0:45:38] Erik: Anyone who has been there knows it is a special place.
[0:45:39 – 0:45:43] Erik: Its sacred nature was just one of the reasons so many built cabins and homes in the area.
[0:45:44 – 0:45:48] Erik: And it was home to several businesses, many of them no longer standing.
[0:45:50 – 0:45:52] Erik: When they came abreast, they braked.
[0:45:53 – 0:45:56] Erik: It had been a long night, one of the longest of their lives.
[0:45:56 – 0:45:59] Erik: They faced each other through the driver’s side windows.
[0:46:00 – 0:46:01] Erik: The sheriff rolled down his window.
[0:46:02 – 0:46:02] Erik: Tom did the same.
[0:46:03 – 0:46:06] Erik: They stared at each other for a moment, both shaking their heads.
[0:46:07 – 0:46:10] Erik: They could not look at each other very long.
[0:46:10 – 0:46:11] Erik: They looked down.
[0:46:11 – 0:46:15] Erik: There were no words to utter as the dawn broke on this burned-up world.
[0:46:16 – 0:46:19] Erik: When Sheriff Falk looked up, Tom was looking at him.
[0:46:20 – 0:46:22] Erik: These were not simple, sentimental men.
[0:46:23 – 0:46:28] Erik: These men didn’t typically weep, but at this moment, tears formed in both sets of eyes.
[0:46:28 – 0:46:29] Erik: They didn’t have to speak.
[0:46:30 – 0:46:38] Erik: There were no words for what had happened up the trail, for what they had been through, what they had both done, and what they had witnessed.
[0:46:39 – 0:46:44] Erik: They had a moment of recognition during which they both knew what the other was thinking.
[0:46:44 – 0:46:45] Erik: And it was a rare moment.
[0:46:46 – 0:46:53] Erik: When men come together to do something momentous, something truly exceptional in the face of so much adversary.
[0:46:54 – 0:46:54] Erik: Adversity.
[0:46:56 – 0:47:01] Erik: After this moment of recognition, they both put their cars in gear and move slowly forward into the day.
[0:47:03 – 0:47:06] Erik: There’s another scene in your screenplay there.
[0:47:06 – 0:47:08] Erik: It’s pretty powerful stuff.
[0:47:08 – 0:47:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:08 – 0:47:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:12 – 0:47:17] Adam: Then they got out of their trucks and wiped the ashes off their foreheads.
[0:47:19 – 0:47:19] Erik: And embraced.
[0:47:20 – 0:47:20] Erik: And embraced.
[0:47:22 – 0:47:27] Erik: On the morning of the 7th, a burnout operation was initiated near Round.
[0:47:28 – 0:47:30] Erik: Brandt and Goddard.
[0:47:30 – 0:47:31] Adam: Hey-oh.
[0:47:31 – 0:47:32] Adam: Shout out.
[0:47:32 – 0:47:32] Adam: Goddard.
[0:47:32 – 0:47:34] Adam: Goddard.
[0:47:34 – 0:47:35] Erik: What about flying?
[0:47:36 – 0:47:37] Erik: No mention of flying.
[0:47:37 – 0:47:37] Erik: Flying.
[0:47:37 – 0:47:38] Erik: They let that thing burn.
[0:47:39 – 0:47:50] Erik: This process involved helicopters and PSDs, or plastic sphere dispensers of ping pong-sized balls filled with high-grade potassium permanganate.
[0:47:51 – 0:47:52] Adam: That’s the good stuff.
[0:47:53 – 0:47:54] Adam: They ain’t messing around.
[0:47:54 – 0:47:56] Adam: They must have went to Wisconsin to get that stuff.
[0:47:56 – 0:47:58] Erik: Yeah, and that’s what came to mind when I bought the Mickey’s here.
[0:48:02 – 0:48:03] Adam: The Premograsits.
[0:48:03 – 0:48:05] Erik: Premograsits.
[0:48:06 – 0:48:07] Erik: So another backburn.
[0:48:08 – 0:48:24] Erik: This maneuver was successful at stopping the fire from progressing in southwest trajectory, and they would try and use this method over the course of the next few days to keep the fire from making a disastrous turn towards Gunflint Lake and the numerous resorts and cabins that existed on its southern shore.
[0:48:25 – 0:48:31] Erik: At this point, the fire was officially elevated to a full-blown level one incident.
[0:48:33 – 0:48:40] Erik: And the MIFC information staff issued the first of two May 7th press releases about the fire.
[0:48:40 – 0:48:41] Erik: Quote…
[0:48:43 – 0:48:53] Erik: The Ham Lake Fire continued to burn actively through the evening, Sunday, and presently is 16,500 plus acres.
[0:48:53 – 0:48:59] Erik: It has burned into the area at the end of the Gunflint Trail, where severe damage to multiple structures has occurred.
[0:49:00 – 0:49:07] Erik: The National Weather Service is forecasting severe fire conditions for the area this afternoon and tomorrow.
[0:49:07 – 0:49:09] Erik: South winds will switch to the west.
[0:49:11 – 0:49:18] Erik: The release also stated that a Type 1 team from the Great Basin has been ordered and will begin arriving today.
[0:49:19 – 0:49:23] Erik: They are individuals from Utah, Nevada, and Southern Idaho.
[0:49:24 – 0:49:28] Erik: The morning release stated that there were 150 plus people working on the fire.
[0:49:29 – 0:49:33] Erik: By the afternoon’s press release, that number had grown to 200 people.
[0:49:34 – 0:49:41] Erik: In essence, the elevation of an event from type two to type one approach involved more than just a doubling of resources.
[0:49:42 – 0:49:52] Erik: According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a type one event is the, quote, most complex, requiring national resources for safe and effective management and operation.
[0:49:53 – 0:50:06] Erik: Typical of this category of event, operations personnel will often exceed 500 and total personnel will usually exceed 1,000.
[0:50:08 – 0:50:18] Erik: The incident commander would be Paul Broyles, National Fire Operations Chief for the National Park Service and the IC for the Great Basin National Incident Management Team.
[0:50:19 – 0:50:23] Erik: He would bring with him an extensive team and resources.
[0:50:23 – 0:50:30] Erik: Perhaps most important, resource requests for a Type 1 event were first in line when addressing disasters.
[0:50:30 – 0:50:31] Erik: In practice, that meant if…
[0:50:32 – 0:50:45] Erik: For example, another fire broke out in another place in the nation, and a Type 2 team in, say, Mississippi requested resources, there would be a queue for these resources, and the Type 1 team would be first in line.
[0:50:46 – 0:50:47] Erik: Broyles.
[0:50:47 – 0:50:48] Erik: Broyles.
[0:50:52 – 0:50:54] Erik: On Sunday, May 6th, Byron Paulson…
[0:50:55 – 0:51:05] Erik: was building a sauna at his cabin in Cloquet, Minnesota when his sister-in-law stopped in to let him know about the fire happening in northeastern Minnesota.
[0:51:06 – 0:51:12] Erik: Considering the time of year and the fact that they were hearing about a fire so far away, he knew it must be serious.
[0:51:13 – 0:51:16] Erik: On top of all this, Byron was a certified IMET.
[0:51:16 – 0:51:18] Erik: What do you think that stands for?
[0:51:18 – 0:51:23] Adam: I got no idea.
[0:51:23 – 0:51:25] Adam: Is he the one flying the drones along the border?
[0:51:25 – 0:51:26] Erik: Maybe.
[0:51:26 – 0:51:29] Erik: He was building a sauna on May 6th, 2007.
[0:51:29 – 0:51:32] Erik: The sauna was still at no do.
[0:51:33 – 0:51:34] Erik: No do at all.
[0:51:35 – 0:51:37] Erik: It stands for Incident Meteorologist.
[0:51:38 – 0:51:38] Erik: Oh.
[0:51:39 – 0:51:45] Erik: And they were called upon for helping with weather forecasts starting at any level 2 wildfire incident.
[0:51:46 – 0:51:54] Erik: His location only allowed for cell service from the top of a ladder in his backyard, but from the top rung learned he was in need.
[0:51:55 – 0:51:56] Erik: Oh, I’ve been there.
[0:51:56 – 0:51:58] Erik: Yes, there’s some kind of a metaphor there.
[0:51:58 – 0:52:00] Erik: From the top rung, I heard.
[0:52:00 – 0:52:01] Erik: I was needed.
[0:52:01 – 0:52:03] Adam: That’s where I keep my tin can.
[0:52:03 – 0:52:04] Erik: On the top rung?
[0:52:04 – 0:52:05] Erik: On the yarn, yeah.
[0:52:06 – 0:52:10] Erik: He quickly packed his things and headed to the home office in Chanhassen.
[0:52:10 – 0:52:12] Adam: Tally-ho, I got a report for ya.
[0:52:12 – 0:52:13] Adam: Over and out.
[0:52:14 – 0:52:15] Adam: I met here.
[0:52:15 – 0:52:17] Adam: Oh, the wind, it’s coming from every which way.
[0:52:18 – 0:52:19] Adam: Oh, every which way.
[0:52:19 – 0:52:19] Erik: Which way.
[0:52:20 – 0:52:34] Erik: After analyzing the forecast for the area of the fire, he reported that both near and long-term forecasts in the area for weather appeared equally ominous.
[0:52:35 – 0:52:38] Erik: At Tuesday morning’s briefing, he reported, quote,
[0:52:39 – 0:52:47] Erik: The approach of a cold front as the high pressure moves into the eastern Great Lakes is a critical weather situation to watch.
[0:52:47 – 0:52:54] Erik: This will bring a period of gusty southwest winds of around 20 mph with higher gusts.
[0:52:55 – 0:53:02] Erik: Relative humidity is often still in the 20-30% range in the transition to southwest winds.
[0:53:02 – 0:53:10] Erik: Typically, a day of gusty southwest winds is followed by the passage of the cold front bringing an abrupt shift to gusty northwest winds.
[0:53:12 – 0:53:12] Adam: Gusty.
[0:53:13 – 0:53:14] Adam: Gusty.
[0:53:14 – 0:53:17] Erik: Is that the front runner for the title of this one?
[0:53:17 – 0:53:18] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:18 – 0:53:18] Erik: Gusty.
[0:53:19 – 0:53:20] Adam: Gusty but trusty.
[0:53:20 – 0:53:21] Erik: Gusty Gooch.
[0:53:22 – 0:53:23] Erik: No, no.
[0:53:27 – 0:53:27] Adam: Every witch away.
[0:53:28 – 0:53:29] Adam: Every witch away.
[0:53:29 – 0:53:31] Adam: Gusty every witch away, tally-ho.
[0:53:32 – 0:53:38] Erik: On the same day, Governor, at the time, Tim Pawlenty, flew over the devastation and still raging fire.
[0:53:40 – 0:54:04] Erik: Based on the report of a wind shift to start blowing from the north-northwest and the current winds blowing from the south-southwest and the current location of the fire head, the decision was made to start working on burning a fire break that would keep the fire from burning back down south of the Gunflint Trail and south of Gunflint Lake, essentially building a line from Magnetic Lake
[0:54:05 – 0:54:13] Erik: At the east, back towards Round Lake Road to the west, using existing Forest Service roads to gain access to this area.
[0:54:14 – 0:54:17] Adam: You could use the force field that’s coming off the magnetic rock itself, too.
[0:54:17 – 0:54:17] Adam: Yeah.
[0:54:18 – 0:54:18] Erik: Yeah.
[0:54:19 – 0:54:21] Adam: It’s not Dolman.
[0:54:21 – 0:54:22] Adam: It’s a Muneer.
[0:54:22 – 0:54:23] Adam: It’s a Muneer.
[0:54:23 – 0:54:24] Adam: It’s got powers.
[0:54:27 – 0:54:29] Adam: We’ll have to do a special episode about those powers.
[0:54:29 – 0:54:32] Adam: But that’s where they set up the line, and that’s probably why.
[0:54:32 – 0:54:33] Adam: They’re not going to tell you about it.
[0:54:33 – 0:54:36] Adam: Even Cary T. Griffith won’t tell you about that.
[0:54:36 – 0:54:37] Adam: He’s not that thorough.
[0:54:37 – 0:54:40] Adam: But that’s in the next book, I think.
[0:54:40 – 0:54:42] Adam: Maybe it’s in the index.
[0:54:43 – 0:54:44] Erik: I wonder what next book he’s working on.
[0:54:45 – 0:54:46] Adam: Yeah, what are you up to there, Cary?
[0:54:47 – 0:54:49] Erik: Tomahomecast at gmail.com.
[0:54:49 – 0:54:51] Erik: Cary Griffith, what’s your next book?
[0:54:51 – 0:54:52] Erik: We’d love to tease it.
[0:54:52 – 0:54:54] Adam: You know you’re a recovering social media user, Cary.
[0:54:54 – 0:54:55] Adam: You got to get out and hit us up.
[0:54:57 – 0:54:58] Erik: Maybe he’s a subredditor.
[0:55:00 – 0:55:01] Adam: Wow, that would blow my mind.
[0:55:01 – 0:55:01] Adam: Yeah.
[0:55:03 – 0:55:17] Erik: So, the enormous task began on the afternoon of Tuesday the 8th through the use of brute force strength with shovels and pickaxes in the woods involving over 200 firefighters and a dozen pieces of heavy equipment.
[0:55:19 – 0:55:30] Erik: The morning of May 9th proved to be the most pivotal day in which it felt like the decisions and work put in could have the most effect towards a positive outcome in the direction the Ham Lake fire was going to head.
[0:55:31 – 0:55:44] Erik: A three-mile fire break was the goal at the start of the day, and the stopping-slash-redirection of an out-of-control wildfire or the potential loss of millions of dollars of property on the south shore of Gunflet Lake was on the line.
[0:55:44 – 0:55:48] Adam: Just pickaxe that thing and fill it with Coghlan’s fire mud.
[0:55:49 – 0:55:51] Erik: No, don’t fill it with Coghlan’s fire paste.
[0:55:51 – 0:55:52] Erik: No, the mud.
[0:55:52 – 0:55:53] Erik: The fire foam.
[0:55:53 – 0:55:55] Adam: Yeah, do you think Coghlan’s has a fire mud?
[0:55:56 – 0:55:59] Adam: Whenever you make the mud, the byproduct is the foam.
[0:56:01 – 0:56:05] Adam: You end up with 500 tubes of fire mud or fire paste.
[0:56:05 – 0:56:07] Adam: You also end up with 500 barrels of foam.
[0:56:08 – 0:56:12] Erik: They do make the fire paste, but they should make the mud.
[0:56:12 – 0:56:16] Erik: Just a bucket for putting out fires.
[0:56:16 – 0:56:17] Erik: For putting out wildfires.
[0:56:17 – 0:56:20] Erik: Fires that you will inevitably cause with the fire paste.
[0:56:20 – 0:56:22] Adam: They should sell it like JB Weld.
[0:56:22 – 0:56:25] Adam: You get one tube of paste and one tube of mud, and don’t mix them together.
[0:56:25 – 0:56:26] Adam: Don’t cross the streams.
[0:56:27 – 0:56:27] Adam: You don’t want to do that.
[0:56:27 – 0:56:29] Adam: One does counteract the other.
[0:56:29 – 0:56:31] Adam: This is a dangerous game.
[0:56:33 – 0:56:35] Adam: They’re playing up there in Coghlan’s HQ.
[0:56:35 – 0:56:36] Erik: Dangerous game.
[0:56:36 – 0:56:39] Adam: Did they file their tapiest reports on this patent?
[0:56:39 – 0:56:40] Adam: We will never know.
[0:56:41 – 0:56:57] Erik: The moment predicted by Byron Paulson that the winds would shift to the southwest was crucial as it gave the opportunity to work on the break and start controlled fires that would burn towards the current wildfire, making an even larger area of spent fuel.
[0:56:58 – 0:56:59] Erik: Over the hour…
[0:57:01 – 0:57:19] Erik: Over the course of the morning, Paulson would launch pie balls, pibbles, which are essentially helium balloons with a theodolite instrument that measures wind speed and direction.
[0:57:19 – 0:57:23] Erik: And by noon, it was changing in a favorable direction.
[0:57:24 – 0:57:35] Erik: As they waited for the winds to fully shift, planes were continually picking up and dropping water from Gunflint Lake onto the south side of the fire break to keep embers and spot fires from starting.
[0:57:36 – 0:57:47] Erik: The woods to the south of the line were fully soaked when the winds did what was predicted and started blowing north, to the north, and at 520 they started firing the line on the ground.
[0:57:48 – 0:58:00] Erik: For a moment, the aerial firing actually got ahead of where firefighters were and almost burned past the line but was called off for a moment, and only two spot fires got past the line, which were promptly extinguished.
[0:58:01 – 0:58:03] Erik: While the main fire had been stopped in its tracks…
[0:58:06 – 0:58:20] Erik: and its intended direction of travel, it was by no means finished, as it paused at the break, which was three miles long and constructed in three hours’ time, before heading east into Canada and along the north shore of Gunflint Lake.
[0:58:21 – 0:58:42] Erik: On May 10th, the predicted cold front that is usually accompanied by rain was only followed by 30-mile-an-hour north-northeast winds that blew the fire along the entire length of Gunflint Lake before it once again crossed the Gunflint Trail, destroying the Iron Lake campground and plunging back into the Bajau waters.
[0:58:43 – 0:58:48] Erik: This day was actually the most destructive day to date, destroying 30,000 acres of wilderness.
[0:58:49 – 0:58:52] Erik: This was the day I remember that one while I was at Clearwater by then.
[0:58:53 – 0:59:03] Erik: And that was the one where it was like we were about as close to firing up the vehicles and taking off when it made that run down Gunflint.
[0:59:03 – 0:59:12] Erik: And then like I remember because like you could see it like you could fully see the smoke from the end of Clearwater Road at the Gunflint.
[0:59:13 – 0:59:18] Erik: And like I remember Trail Center was like kind of in the line of fire for a second there on that day.
[0:59:20 – 0:59:21] Adam: All of Poplar.
[0:59:22 – 0:59:22] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:22 – 0:59:23] Adam: All the mid-trail.
[0:59:24 – 0:59:28] Adam: I mean, it’s right up there past the mid-trail area.
[0:59:28 – 0:59:33] Adam: You can still see that little string of burn that went across by Iron Lake.
[0:59:33 – 0:59:33] Erik: Yep.
[0:59:34 – 0:59:35] Adam: That’s freaky close.
[0:59:36 – 0:59:37] Adam: Nothing really was moving.
[0:59:37 – 0:59:40] Erik: Yeah, it almost made a full circle on itself.
[0:59:41 – 0:59:42] Adam: Ouroboros.
[0:59:42 – 0:59:44] Adam: Ouroboros.
[0:59:44 – 0:59:45] Adam: That’s the name of this episode.
[0:59:46 – 0:59:47] Adam: Gusty Boros.
[0:59:49 – 0:59:49] Adam: That makes sense.
[0:59:50 – 0:59:52] Adam: I got a fact check on the flight.
[0:59:52 – 0:59:54] Adam: Timothy Chalamet was in Lady Bird.
[0:59:54 – 0:59:55] Adam: You ever seen Lady Bird?
[0:59:56 – 0:59:58] Adam: No camping or fishing in that one, but solid film.
[1:00:00 – 1:00:00] Erik: Mm-mm.
[1:00:02 – 1:00:12] Erik: Isn’t that the one with the one girl slash woman whose name is like impossible to pronounce because it’s one of those like has like an R with a squiggly line under it.
[1:00:14 – 1:00:14] Adam: Yeah.
[1:00:14 – 1:00:21] Erik: She’s also what’s her name with the the Mexican birthmark on her face from Grand Budapest Hotel.
[1:00:22 – 1:00:22] Adam: Yep.
[1:00:22 – 1:00:23] Adam: That’s the one.
[1:00:23 – 1:00:25] Erik: What’s her name in the movie?
[1:00:26 – 1:00:26] Erik: Tabitha?
[1:00:27 – 1:00:28] Erik: Agatha.
[1:00:28 – 1:00:28] Adam: Agatha.
[1:00:28 – 1:00:29] Adam: Agatha.
[1:00:29 – 1:00:30] Adam: But I’m not ready to talk about that.
[1:00:30 – 1:00:31] Adam: I’m not ready to talk about that.
[1:00:34 – 1:00:36] Erik: I love that we were both going for the same quote there.
[1:00:38 – 1:00:39] Adam: All right.
[1:00:39 – 1:00:40] Adam: On the same page, Eric.
[1:00:40 – 1:00:40] Erik: Yep.
[1:00:41 – 1:00:47] Erik: So the fire raged for five more days after this run along the north edge of Gunflint Lake.
[1:00:47 – 1:00:55] Adam: This is when the Canadians were saving my co-worker’s family cabin due to that fire break on the magnetic rock.
[1:00:56 – 1:00:57] Adam: Sent the fire that-a-way.
[1:00:58 – 1:00:58] Erik: Pew, pew.
[1:00:59 – 1:00:59] Adam: Get off of here.
[1:00:59 – 1:01:01] Adam: You’re going over that-a-way.
[1:01:01 – 1:01:06] Adam: And then the Mounties came down on their, I don’t know how they got down there.
[1:01:06 – 1:01:07] Adam: I’m just picturing them.
[1:01:08 – 1:01:09] Adam: On their winged horses?
[1:01:09 – 1:01:11] Adam: Who knows what kind of pegasi they’re riding.
[1:01:12 – 1:01:12] Adam: Who knows?
[1:01:12 – 1:01:13] Adam: Yeah, I got them.
[1:01:14 – 1:01:22] Erik: So the fire raged for five more days, during which the wind finally began to diminish, enabling the Type 1 team to begin putting the fire out.
[1:01:23 – 1:01:25] Erik: It was a long and exhaustive process.
[1:01:26 – 1:01:37] Erik: In the end, almost all of the 144 structures that burned during the Ham Lake fire were consumed on that fateful Sunday and Monday, when the blaze burned through the more populated end of the trail.
[1:01:38 – 1:01:46] Erik: We used to have 11 homes on our road, commented Corinne Sirikowski in a Pioneer Press article published on May 8th.
[1:01:47 – 1:01:48] Erik: There are three left.
[1:01:48 – 1:01:53] Erik: There are places that are a total wipeout, and next door, green trees and grass.
[1:01:54 – 1:02:00] Erik: It’s really shocking, said Deb Mark, owner of Seagull Canoe Outfitters, who was quoted in the same article.
[1:02:00 – 1:02:04] Erik: It’s a numbing experience to go through green one day and black the next.
[1:02:06 – 1:02:10] Erik: When asked if he had lost something in the fire, Earl Cipher snapped, I didn’t lose something.
[1:02:11 – 1:02:12] Erik: I lost everything.
[1:02:13 – 1:02:23] Erik: And Earl was the owner of Superior North Outfitters at the time, which that’s that famous picture of all the Kevlar canoes burned down to just their outlines.
[1:02:23 – 1:02:29] Erik: You can still see where Superior North used to be if you drive the SAG trail going towards Voyager Canoe Outfitters.
[1:02:30 – 1:02:38] Erik: With the notable exception of a handful of rustic cabins on the Canadian side of Gunflint Lake, which were burned on May 11th, no other structures were lost.
[1:02:39 – 1:02:44] Erik: After May 11th, the fire burned for another four days, consuming an additional 20,000 acres of forest.
[1:02:45 – 1:02:50] Erik: During every day of the fire, Voyager Sue Prom faithfully updated the public through her blog.
[1:02:52 – 1:02:54] Erik: Some of these entries are very long and detailed.
[1:02:55 – 1:03:02] Erik: On May 12th, three days after the big burn, she posted a lengthy entry of more than a thousand words titled Ham Lake Luck.
[1:03:02 – 1:03:07] Erik: She referenced the start of the fire and conveyed a sentiment held by many along the Gunflint Trail, quote,
[1:03:09 – 1:03:13] Erik: The acreage burned on the Ham Lake fire is now over 55,000 acres.
[1:03:14 – 1:03:18] Erik: Half of the Gunflint Trail has been evacuated and the fire is only 5% contained.
[1:03:19 – 1:03:21] Erik: Can you imagine being the person responsible for this fire?
[1:03:22 – 1:03:30] Erik: The loss of property, the displacement of the evacuees, the disruption of all of these lives, the risk of the lives of the firefighters…
[1:03:31 – 1:03:36] Erik: I feel for that person because the weight on their shoulders must be almost too heavy to carry.
[1:03:37 – 1:03:38] Erik: It could have happened to anyone.
[1:03:39 – 1:03:41] Erik: Have you ever left a campfire burning unattended overnight?
[1:03:42 – 1:03:43] Erik: I know I have.
[1:03:43 – 1:03:50] Erik: Have you left a campsite for a quick paddle out to try to catch some fish with the fire still smoking?
[1:03:50 – 1:03:51] Erik: I know I have.
[1:03:51 – 1:03:56] Erik: Have you packed up all your belongings without being positively sure your campfire was cool to the touch?
[1:03:57 – 1:03:58] Erik: I know I have.
[1:03:58 – 1:04:01] Erik: The person responsible for this fire didn’t try to start it.
[1:04:02 – 1:04:03] Erik: It just happened.
[1:04:03 – 1:04:08] Erik: The conditions of the forest were primed for fire, and maybe the person did everything they were supposed to do.
[1:04:09 – 1:04:18] Erik: Maybe the fire burned deep down into the duff, or an errant spark blew into some dry brush in the woods waiting to ignite when the conditions became volatile.
[1:04:18 – 1:04:20] Erik: Whatever happened, it happened.
[1:04:21 – 1:04:23] Erik: were all great Monday night quarterbacks.
[1:04:24 – 1:04:27] Erik: Quote, There should have been a fire ban in place.
[1:04:28 – 1:04:29] Erik: Sure, I agree.
[1:04:29 – 1:04:36] Erik: After a fire has consumed 55,000 acres, but if you would have asked me a week ago if I wanted a fire ban, I doubt I would have agreed.
[1:04:37 – 1:04:39] Erik: The ice just went off the lakes.
[1:04:39 – 1:04:44] Erik: The late season snow had kept the Gunflint Trail in a condition better than the rest of the state of Minnesota.
[1:04:45 – 1:04:48] Erik: The water is cold in May, and the air temperatures are normally cold too.
[1:04:49 – 1:04:55] Erik: Not many people visit the BWCA in May, and everyone who loves camping loves to have a campfire.
[1:04:56 – 1:05:05] Erik: Eventually, on May 15th, the fire would be largely extinguished, although parts of the forest would continue to smolder for several weeks.
[1:05:06 – 1:05:16] Erik: By the time the fire was finally subdued, it had consumed an estimated 75,551 acres, the largest forest fire in Minnesota history in almost a century.
[1:05:17 – 1:05:26] Erik: the more than 1,000 firefighters, volunteers, and others who had given so much of their time and sweat to end it were, like the fire, finally spent.
[1:05:30 – 1:05:39] Erik: So, what of Stephen Posniak, you might be asking yourselves, and yourself?
[1:05:39 – 1:05:40] Erik: He fled the scene.
[1:05:40 – 1:05:41] Adam: He’s fleeing the scene.
[1:05:42 – 1:05:45] Adam: Yeah, we haven’t heard from him in a while.
[1:05:47 – 1:05:49] Erik: Went back to Maine?
[1:05:50 – 1:05:52] Erik: Washington, D.C. is where he was from, actually.
[1:05:54 – 1:06:03] Erik: On May 6th, the Sunday after the fire started, at the Best Western in Grand Marais, Barry Huber.
[1:06:04 – 1:06:05] Erik: The U.S. Forest.
[1:06:06 – 1:06:07] Erik: The Huber Report.
[1:06:09 – 1:06:11] Erik: Yeah, did we ever determine who was the Barry Huber?
[1:06:13 – 1:06:13] Adam: Cooper.
[1:06:14 – 1:06:15] Erik: Yeah, Cooper from Twin Peaks.
[1:06:17 – 1:06:26] Erik: So he arrives at Posniak’s hotel room, noting that even though he had been cleaned up from the day before, he still looked incredibly disheveled and lacking sleep.
[1:06:27 – 1:06:35] Erik: Barry actually read him his Miranda rights and asked him to tell him truthfully what had happened on Ham Lake.
[1:06:36 – 1:06:37] Erik: And Stephen responded…
[1:06:38 – 1:06:39] Adam: I was camped on Cross Bay Lake.
[1:06:39 – 1:06:40] Erik: No.
[1:06:41 – 1:06:41] Erik: Yes.
[1:06:42 – 1:06:43] Erik: I never meant for this to happen.
[1:06:44 – 1:06:45] Erik: It was an accident.
[1:06:46 – 1:06:54] Erik: He was told additional officers would be contacting him and Posniak then left for Minneapolis where he was staying with a friend before heading all the way home to Washington, D.C.
[1:06:56 – 1:07:08] Erik: On May 7th, at the home of his friend in Minneapolis, he was interviewed by U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Keith McAuliffe and CO, that is, Conservation Officer Michael Scott.
[1:07:09 – 1:07:15] Erik: They learned about how, in fact, Stephen had burned the newspaper, turned his back, and left it to blow in the woods where it took off.
[1:07:16 – 1:07:19] Erik: admitting he was negligent but not intentional.
[1:07:20 – 1:07:27] Erik: He also noted how upset he was by the Minnesota governor’s comment that, quote, whoever started this fire is extremely stupid.
[1:07:28 – 1:07:32] Erik: Which I guess may be true, but…
[1:07:34 – 1:07:55] Erik: I don’t know so weird it seems like on one hand it’s a weird comment for a governor to make knowing that whoever did start the fire probably knew that but I don’t know so over the course of the next year the investigation continued and at some point a grand jury was convinced that there was enough evidence to can that they could charge him with a criminal felony
[1:07:56 – 1:08:05] Erik: even though grand juries are ridiculously secretive, and we don’t really know when that grand jury was held or who voted on what or who was even on the grand jury.
[1:08:07 – 1:08:19] Erik: Next week on the podcast, we will be discussing how much of a bullshit system the grand juries are, but we won’t get into that.
[1:08:21 – 1:08:22] Erik: And so with this,
[1:08:24 – 1:08:29] Erik: Basically, they needed to convince the grand jury that they could charge him before actually charging him.
[1:08:29 – 1:08:36] Erik: And so on October 20th, 2008, he was charged with a three-part indictment.
[1:08:36 – 1:08:40] Erik: Count one was a setting timber of fire.
[1:08:42 – 1:09:05] Erik: Quote, the defendant burned paper, trash, and other items that ignited a fire in the Superior National Forest that burned approximately 75,000 acres in the United States and Canada and resulted in fire suppression costs of approximately $11 million in violation of Title 18 United States Code Section 1855.
[1:09:05 – 1:09:10] Erik: Count two, leaving fire unattended and unextinguished.
[1:09:10 – 1:09:15] Erik: and count three, giving false information to a forest officer.
[1:09:16 – 1:09:20] Erik: The first count was a felony and held a max sentence of six years.
[1:09:21 – 1:09:23] Erik: The other two counts were misdemeanors.
[1:09:24 – 1:09:28] Erik: If Posniak were found guilty of committing a felony, he would be liable for damages.
[1:09:29 – 1:09:36] Erik: And while courts are keen to punish, they really don’t like to destroy people with fines.
[1:09:36 – 1:09:40] Erik: And when discussing the possible judgment against Posniak…
[1:09:41 – 1:09:50] Erik: Huber explained that even if Posniak had been found guilty of committing a felony, the court might have levied a fine but not wiped him out.
[1:09:50 – 1:10:05] Erik: The reality of these big fires, explained Huber, is that they’re stuck with a huge bill, and they reveal their assets, and they look at what they can reasonably afford to pay, and a judge will look at his situation and determine what they’ll pay.
[1:10:06 – 1:10:09] Erik: In the end, he would have been left with enough income to survive.
[1:10:10 – 1:10:15] Erik: but it is unclear if Posniak was aware of these kinds of judicial determinations.
[1:10:18 – 1:10:34] Erik: On December 16th, 2008, just three days after a failed attempt to get counts one and three dropped by the court, Steven Posniak died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and in the end became the only casualty of the Ham Lake fire.
[1:10:36 – 1:10:42] Erik: His friends would eventually return to the BWCA with his ashes to leave them with the ashes from the fire he started.
[1:10:44 – 1:10:46] Erik: And he would go on to nourish the regrowth of the wilderness.
[1:10:47 – 1:10:55] Erik: He had grown to love so much and been torn apart by so much in his careless act, which led to so much destruction.
[1:10:57 – 1:11:01] Adam: I didn’t know that his ashes were brought back up and added.
[1:11:02 – 1:11:08] Erik: That was the last paragraph of the book was describing how his friends did that for him.
[1:11:09 – 1:11:13] Erik: It wasn’t very detailed, so I think either they wanted to keep it…
[1:11:16 – 1:11:45] Erik: as private as possible or it could have just been a nice way for the story to actually finish up even though it maybe didn’t I don’t know either way I’m not saying that there’s any lies involved but it was like there wasn’t any detail at all in terms of how he ended up coming back to be deposited but yeah I think at the end of the day the biggest thing that I took away from it is that yeah he was the only casualty
[1:11:47 – 1:11:58] Erik: And there’s some suggestions towards the end of this book that maybe he wasn’t fully aware of like how like garnished wages work or…
[1:11:59 – 1:11:59] Erik: Right.
[1:12:00 – 1:12:02] Adam: He thought maybe he was going to be fully…
[1:12:03 – 1:12:05] Erik: like bankrupt by the whole thing.
[1:12:06 – 1:12:06] Erik: Hard to say.
[1:12:08 – 1:12:16] Erik: But regardless, a very interesting story of some heroic efforts, some near misses.
[1:12:18 – 1:12:20] Erik: At the end of the day, the forest will grow back.
[1:12:21 – 1:12:26] Erik: But you can’t bring back that life.
[1:12:27 – 1:12:29] Erik: And I think that’s the saddest part about the whole thing.
[1:12:30 – 1:12:31] Erik: He wasn’t an older man.
[1:12:31 – 1:12:33] Erik: He had some good years ahead of him.
[1:12:34 – 1:12:43] Erik: And I do feel some heart sickness for Steven in the decision that he decided to make.
[1:12:43 – 1:12:44] Adam: Yeah, me too.
[1:12:46 – 1:12:55] Erik: But everybody that was involved in the firefighting efforts, the evacuation efforts, from top to bottom, it sounds like quite the effort.
[1:12:55 – 1:12:57] Erik: And I am…
[1:12:58 – 1:13:08] Erik: Happy to say that I am happy that I live where I do because of the incredible volunteer fire department infrastructure that we are surrounded by.
[1:13:08 – 1:13:11] Erik: So that’s that.
[1:13:11 – 1:13:16] Erik: That is the finale of the Ham Lake Fire story.
[1:13:21 – 1:13:22] Erik: Anything else?
[1:13:23 – 1:13:24] Erik: My good man.
[1:13:26 – 1:13:28] Adam: No, just be careful out there, you know.
[1:13:28 – 1:13:32] Adam: We were just talking at the beginning, you know, like, oh, the lake’s just opened up, you know.
[1:13:32 – 1:13:34] Adam: It’s just the exact same time of year, you know.
[1:13:34 – 1:13:38] Adam: It’s a good time to talk about this story.
[1:13:38 – 1:13:38] Erik: Yeah.
[1:13:39 – 1:13:46] Adam: You know, that blog post from Sue Prom, you know, and, you know, I have done the same or whatever, you know.
[1:13:46 – 1:13:51] Erik: I’ve gone to bed so many times with like, man, we’ll keep an eye on it.
[1:13:53 – 1:13:53] Adam: Right.
[1:13:53 – 1:14:00] Adam: You know, it’s easy to make fun of a fat guy wearing headphones in the Boundary Waters, but it’s a sad story at the end of the story.
[1:14:00 – 1:14:05] Adam: And it could have happened to anybody, you know, and it just happened.
[1:14:05 – 1:14:06] Adam: It just happened.
[1:14:06 – 1:14:06] Adam: As she wrote.
[1:14:07 – 1:14:08] Adam: Yeah.
[1:14:08 – 1:14:11] Adam: So tale of caution, a sad tale of caution.
[1:14:12 – 1:14:36] Adam: but uh that’s the you know living in the north woods the the danger of fire is always there it’s something that’s always in everybody’s mind and a windy day like today you know especially um but anyways uh i think i think you would probably recommend this book i was at the library the other day i saw they have a couple copies in town the library it’s uh you know
[1:14:38 – 1:14:44] Adam: Sounds like a pretty fascinating read, but thanks for digging into it and giving us the short version.
[1:14:45 – 1:14:46] Erik: Yeah.
[1:14:47 – 1:14:50] Adam: I think probably a lot of people are going to end up reading this book that have listened to this.
[1:14:51 – 1:15:01] Erik: I’ve heard a couple of people reaching out saying that there was some interest garnered that caused them to purchase the book.
[1:15:02 – 1:15:06] Erik: Which is, I mean, again, we are not a replacement for the book.
[1:15:06 – 1:15:08] Erik: We’re just using it to…
[1:15:10 – 1:15:15] Erik: Explain in a little bit more, especially with some of the direct quotes from people.
[1:15:16 – 1:15:17] Erik: Those are always great to hear.
[1:15:17 – 1:15:25] Erik: But man, yeah, this podcast scratches the surface on the details that can be learned from it.
[1:15:25 – 1:15:35] Erik: And just the, you know, there’s a huge difference between reading a book and listening to a podcast and how you can shape in your own mind’s eye what a scene would look like.
[1:15:36 – 1:15:48] Erik: And Cary does a really good job, especially towards the end of the book, a couple of those, the seagull outfitters, the guard station, those battles to protect those structures.
[1:15:49 – 1:15:53] Erik: Pretty harrowing and intense, and he does a really good job, all while balancing the…
[1:15:55 – 1:16:10] Erik: the details just blow by blow, like what’s happening in a chaotic scene, which there are points where you, you kind of get a little bit lost, but I think that’s also sort of the point.
[1:16:10 – 1:16:13] Erik: Like it’s really hard to keep track of.
[1:16:13 – 1:16:15] Erik: It was really hard to keep track of.
[1:16:15 – 1:16:25] Erik: And I don’t know if there’s necessarily going to be a fully black and white picture of what actually happened because there are 200 different opinions on what was happening in
[1:16:25 – 1:16:31] Erik: During a fire that nobody really knew where it was for the vast majority of it, especially while it was starting.
[1:16:32 – 1:16:36] Adam: Yeah, that was crazy to hear about how they couldn’t even with airplanes figure out where it was due to the smoke.
[1:16:37 – 1:16:37] Erik: Yeah.
[1:16:37 – 1:16:45] Adam: The whole thing was confusing and always changing minute to minute up there.
[1:16:46 – 1:16:51] Adam: You know, I’ve been berry picking up there a lot, you know, since this has happened.
[1:16:51 – 1:16:54] Adam: And over the years, it’s getting more and more overgrown.
[1:16:54 – 1:16:59] Adam: But like the early years when I first moved back up here, it was still like pretty freshly burnt.
[1:16:59 – 1:17:00] Adam: And the blueberry picking was incredible.
[1:17:01 – 1:17:06] Adam: I had a lot of, like, really nice afternoons in that burn, like, picking berries.
[1:17:06 – 1:17:06] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[1:17:07 – 1:17:12] Adam: And not that it, you know, it’s like, oh, it’s a good thing that fire was there for these berries.
[1:17:12 – 1:17:21] Adam: But I never, like, had thought about it in all the hours of sitting there picking blueberries of, like, you know, you knew the fire had gone through there.
[1:17:21 – 1:17:30] Adam: But to, like, really think about, like, the whole story behind the fire and to hear these, like, chaotic, like, accounts of the days when it was going through those areas.
[1:17:30 – 1:17:30] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[1:17:31 – 1:18:00] Adam: you know it like a lot of things when you learn more about it and it puts it in perspective you know that’s uh just uh a wild way though that the the land can go from like dense big forest down to nothing again yeah and then but then you have these like you know some really good blueberry picking that came from that so not that it’s like a silver lining but it is something nice you know that nature it’s a bit of provides you know it’s uh you know fire is a part of the the woods
[1:18:00 – 1:18:16] Erik: Yeah, regardless of whether it’s started by a human or not, it’d be a completely different conversation if a wildfire was the end of the story of a forest.
[1:18:16 – 1:18:19] Erik: Where it’s like, oh, you burn a forest down, it’s never going to come back.
[1:18:19 – 1:18:23] Erik: It’s like, well, especially boreal forests are greatly helped by fires.
[1:18:24 – 1:18:28] Adam: Yeah, and I’ve been up here long enough now to see the changes in 10 years.
[1:18:29 – 1:18:30] Adam: Yeah.
[1:18:31 – 1:18:33] Adam: And what’s going to look like 10 years from now.
[1:18:33 – 1:18:33] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:34 – 1:18:37] Erik: The unfortunate part is for humans that we don’t have the long view.
[1:18:37 – 1:18:38] Erik: Right.
[1:18:39 – 1:18:44] Erik: Like, this is beneficial to the forest, but I want to see 300-year-old white pine stands.
[1:18:45 – 1:18:45] Erik: It’s like, well…
[1:18:46 – 1:18:48] Erik: That’s, you know, enjoy.
[1:18:48 – 1:18:52] Erik: It makes those places where there are those trees even more special.
[1:18:52 – 1:18:52] Erik: Yeah.
[1:18:52 – 1:19:02] Erik: And just know that other people in the future will get to, hopefully, barring climate change, get to enjoy those in the future as well.
[1:19:02 – 1:19:08] Erik: Because the natural progression of the forest is predicated on consistent and regular wildfires.
[1:19:09 – 1:19:13] Erik: And anytime you talk about, you know, the…
[1:19:14 – 1:19:35] Erik: the scale and the span of time on things like that it can be hard to appreciate because we’ve only got 50 to 80 years to see stuff and a lot of times that’s uh the forest progression is on a much larger scale than that so it can be hard to appreciate because all you see is
[1:19:37 – 1:19:57] Erik: the aesthetics of a forest that’s maybe not as pretty as old growth but in the long run it’s beneficial so truly well we are trapped in the present and time is an illusion both thing yeah that’s those are both true statements all right well thanks eric and life is a miracle
[1:19:59 – 1:19:59] Erik: Happy paddling.
[1:20:00 – 1:20:07] Erik: Keep those fires doused and cold to the touch.
[1:22:01 – 1:22:02] UNKNOWN: Thank you.