142: The Ham Lake Fire Part 1 – Heart Sick

Episode Transcript

[0:00:14 – 0:00:15] UNKNOWN: Thank you.
[0:00:32 – 0:00:36] Adam: Welcome to Tumbled Home Boundary Waters Podcast.
[0:00:36 – 0:00:40] Adam: This is episode 0142 of the show.
[0:00:42 – 0:00:44] Adam: I’m here in Studio K2 with a view.
[0:00:44 – 0:00:45] Adam: My name is Adam.
[0:00:45 – 0:00:46] Adam: I’m here with my good friend Eric.
[0:00:46 – 0:00:47] Adam: Hello, Eric.
[0:00:47 – 0:00:48] Adam: Hello, Adam.
[0:00:49 – 0:00:51] Adam: Welcome, one and all, 0142.
[0:00:53 – 0:00:53] Adam: Sun is out.
[0:00:54 – 0:00:55] Erik: Yeah, it is.
[0:00:55 – 0:00:56] Adam: It’s a beautiful day.
[0:00:56 – 0:00:59] Erik: I heard my first loon call today.
[0:00:59 – 0:01:00] Erik: Wow.
[0:01:00 – 0:01:01] Erik: IRL.
[0:01:01 – 0:01:02] Erik: Wow.
[0:01:02 – 0:01:08] Erik: Sitting out on the porch this morning in the nice glorious sun after a week of living in a cloud and off in the distance.
[0:01:09 – 0:01:10] Erik: The old champ went flying by.
[0:01:10 – 0:01:12] Adam: The old champ.
[0:01:12 – 0:01:13] Adam: Hello, Beaks.
[0:01:13 – 0:01:14] Adam: Howdy, Beaks.
[0:01:15 – 0:01:18] Adam: Well, it is April 15th, 2021.
[0:01:19 – 0:01:20] Adam: That’s your Ron Cher out to our calendar.
[0:01:20 – 0:01:22] Adam: Fact of the day.
[0:01:22 – 0:01:24] Adam: Sunset’s at, I don’t know, 741.
[0:01:24 – 0:01:25] Adam: We don’t have the calendar.
[0:01:26 – 0:01:26] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:01:26 – 0:01:29] Adam: Once again, I don’t know where that second calendar went.
[0:01:29 – 0:01:30] Adam: Beaks, do you know?
[0:01:30 – 0:01:31] Adam: Beaks, are you out there?
[0:01:31 – 0:01:32] Erik: Beaks McKenzie.
[0:01:33 – 0:01:34] Erik: Beaks Immer, that is.
[0:01:34 – 0:01:35] Erik: Sorry.
[0:01:35 – 0:01:38] Erik: We are sponsored by our fine friends on Patreon.
[0:01:38 – 0:01:40] Erik: Thank you, patrons.
[0:01:40 – 0:01:43] Erik: We don’t have anything lined up for a second April TCC.
[0:01:43 – 0:01:50] Adam: So, yeah, send us a suggestion or we’re going to do Love Liza.
[0:01:51 – 0:01:52] Adam: Yes, we should.
[0:01:52 – 0:01:53] Adam: We’re absolutely doing it.
[0:01:53 – 0:01:56] Adam: There’s boats in there, and there’s our loophole.
[0:01:56 – 0:02:00] Adam: We’re going to do Love, Liza unless a better suggestion comes along.
[0:02:00 – 0:02:01] Adam: Great.
[0:02:02 – 0:02:06] Adam: Hopefully not something with Kevin Bacon, but is John C. Reilly in Love, Liza?
[0:02:06 – 0:02:07] Adam: Who’s to say?
[0:02:07 – 0:02:08] Erik: I don’t think so.
[0:02:08 – 0:02:17] Erik: I can only think of one other guy that’s recognizable from that movie, and I have no idea what his name is, but he’s kind of one of those actors where you see him, you’re just like, oh, yeah, that guy.
[0:02:18 – 0:02:26] Adam: Yeah, I’ve seen it, but it was a long time ago, so I don’t know how that one ended up coming up last week, but it’s been stuck in my head all week.
[0:02:26 – 0:02:27] Adam: I want to watch Love, Liza again.
[0:02:27 – 0:02:29] Erik: I don’t know how it came up either.
[0:02:30 – 0:02:49] Erik: yeah well it’s something to do with huffing gas something about gas yeah like like camp gas or something oh yeah yeah it was that high grade rc like plane and boat gas that’s right yeah extra forget about the fact that your wife died horribly and left you a sad sad note
[0:02:52 – 0:02:57] Erik: We are, as always, again sponsored by me and the beers that I purchased.
[0:02:58 – 0:02:59] Adam: Eric, way to go.
[0:02:59 – 0:03:03] Erik: I was down in the cities helping the parents with some spring projects.
[0:03:03 – 0:03:08] Erik: Ended up at an MGM Liquor and my, oh my, there’s some beers out there.
[0:03:09 – 0:03:10] Erik: There are some beers out there.
[0:03:10 – 0:03:20] Erik: I think we have plateaued in the micro brew bubble because I don’t recognize half of the stuff in those big liquor stores.
[0:03:21 – 0:03:22] Adam: It’s overwhelming.
[0:03:22 – 0:03:24] Adam: Oh, it is overwhelming when you’re getting a big one like that.
[0:03:24 – 0:03:32] Erik: It’s like you kind of focus on what you know, but then even the brewers that you know are like, what?
[0:03:33 – 0:03:39] Erik: So we’ve been sponsored, I think, probably the most by Surly Brewing, and we are sponsored this week by Surly.
[0:03:40 – 0:03:42] Erik: This is Give the Devil His Due.
[0:03:42 – 0:03:46] Erik: It looks wicked, Eric.
[0:03:46 – 0:03:47] Erik: It does look wicked.
[0:03:47 – 0:03:52] Erik: Considering this week’s subject matter, I guess there are flames on the can.
[0:03:52 – 0:03:53] Erik: There certainly are.
[0:03:54 – 0:03:59] Erik: It’s a double dry hopped, hazy, double India pale ale.
[0:03:59 – 0:04:02] Erik: Are you ready for a pint of 9.3% alcohol?
[0:04:03 – 0:04:06] Adam: Yeah, I’ve been on a beer break except for recording days, so this is going to hit right.
[0:04:06 – 0:04:07] Adam: We’re packing it in.
[0:04:07 – 0:04:08] Adam: Ooh.
[0:04:12 – 0:04:13] Adam: Cheers, my good man.
[0:04:13 – 0:04:14] Adam: Cheers to you.
[0:04:19 – 0:04:21] Adam: No steelhead yet, Eric.
[0:04:21 – 0:04:24] Adam: Holy moly.
[0:04:25 – 0:04:26] Adam: Maybe that’s why I haven’t caught any steelhead.
[0:04:26 – 0:04:28] Adam: I haven’t given the devil his due.
[0:04:28 – 0:04:31] Adam: I haven’t given the devil anything.
[0:04:31 – 0:04:34] Adam: I’ve got to pay up to get that evil fish.
[0:04:34 – 0:04:37] Adam: I’m almost convinced the steelhead’s a myth at this point.
[0:04:37 – 0:04:38] Adam: It’s a fish of legend.
[0:04:40 – 0:04:40] Erik: Very well could be.
[0:04:41 – 0:04:41] Erik: There’s no proof.
[0:04:41 – 0:04:43] Adam: I stopped at Durfee.
[0:04:44 – 0:04:45] Adam: I stopped at Cliff.
[0:04:45 – 0:04:47] Adam: I bushwhacked over to fish them out at Cliff.
[0:04:47 – 0:04:49] Adam: That’s a tough one to get at.
[0:04:49 – 0:04:50] Adam: Nobody goes down there.
[0:04:50 – 0:04:53] Adam: I guess nobody’s catching anything at Cliff.
[0:04:53 – 0:04:58] Adam: And then I stopped at the Cadunce, too, on the shore here today.
[0:04:59 – 0:04:59] Adam: Nothing’s going.
[0:05:01 – 0:05:07] Adam: But I’m going to give this Wicked double IPA.
[0:05:07 – 0:05:08] Adam: I’m going to give it…
[0:05:11 – 0:05:12] Adam: Seven out of five.
[0:05:12 – 0:05:14] Erik: Oh, back-to-back seven out of fives.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:18] Adam: Seven out of five, yeah, splashed pebbles.
[0:05:18 – 0:05:20] Erik: Splashed pebbles.
[0:05:20 – 0:05:22] Erik: Yeah, I’m going to give it five out of five wows.
[0:05:23 – 0:05:25] Adam: It’s wicked, but in the best possible way.
[0:05:26 – 0:05:32] Erik: It’s very good, but you can also tell it’s like, you know, you’ve heard the phrase like sandwich in a can.
[0:05:32 – 0:05:34] Erik: This is like a Chipotle burrito in a can.
[0:05:34 – 0:05:34] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:34 – 0:05:36] Adam: There’s a lot of calories happening here.
[0:05:36 – 0:05:37] Adam: All the fixings.
[0:05:38 – 0:05:39] Adam: Yeah, it’s rich.
[0:05:39 – 0:05:40] Adam: Oh, it’s rich.
[0:05:40 – 0:06:04] Adam: extra quark is there some gravy in this maybe got a little gravy in here gravy on the bottom fruit on top fermented and then and then fermented gravy is added at the end they splash it with a little dry hop and a little wet gravy wet gravied oh she’s double wet gravied they finished it with some wet gravies yep that’s probably what they did
[0:06:05 – 0:06:05] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[0:06:05 – 0:06:08] Erik: It’s juicy, hazy, and devilish.
[0:06:08 – 0:06:09] Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:06:10 – 0:06:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:06:11 – 0:06:11] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:06:12 – 0:06:13] Erik: You can drink more than one of those.
[0:06:13 – 0:06:16] Adam: Nope, just one for me today.
[0:06:16 – 0:06:17] Adam: I don’t know if anybody could.
[0:06:17 – 0:06:18] Adam: I’m being good.
[0:06:18 – 0:06:20] Adam: I’m eating a lot of garbanzo bean.
[0:06:20 – 0:06:23] Adam: I’m on the hashtag chickpeanish this week.
[0:06:23 – 0:06:26] Erik: Are you trying to get into beach body shape for the summer or what?
[0:06:26 – 0:06:27] Adam: Absolutely, yeah.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:32] Adam: I mean, yeah, my trunks don’t fit right.
[0:06:32 – 0:06:33] Erik: Ah, well, that’s a problem.
[0:06:34 – 0:06:35] Erik: You need them to fit right.
[0:06:35 – 0:06:36] Adam: You know, the sun’s out.
[0:06:36 – 0:06:40] Adam: It’s only a matter of time until it’s swimming weather, so you got to get on it now.
[0:06:40 – 0:06:41] Erik: Get on it now.
[0:06:41 – 0:06:45] Adam: You know, spring break, I got a little wild over spring break doing that tiling project.
[0:06:45 – 0:06:46] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:46 – 0:06:47] Adam: That was pretty nuts.
[0:06:48 – 0:06:49] Erik: Tyler’s gone wild.
[0:06:49 – 0:06:51] Adam: It was just tiling and tequila all week.
[0:06:53 – 0:06:54] Erik: Well, that’s nice.
[0:06:54 – 0:06:57] Erik: That’s a good way to spend basically a pandemic spring break.
[0:06:57 – 0:06:59] Adam: What else are you going to do?
[0:06:59 – 0:07:00] Adam: I had fun with it.
[0:07:00 – 0:07:00] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:02 – 0:07:04] Erik: Well, we are talking.
[0:07:05 – 0:07:06] Erik: We’re book reporting.
[0:07:07 – 0:07:10] Erik: Again, it’s been since before the tumble tourney.
[0:07:11 – 0:07:16] Adam: Eric read several catalogs all about Rain Gear, and we’re definitely doing a whole episode on Rain Gear.
[0:07:16 – 0:07:23] Erik: Yes, we are running the history of Rain Gears, starting with the waxed canvas series.
[0:07:24 – 0:07:31] Erik: and leading all the way up to the petroleum-based and plastic-based high-end models.
[0:07:31 – 0:07:33] Erik: So buckle up.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:38] Erik: We are not going to get any more excited in our voices than mine right now.
[0:07:39 – 0:07:45] Erik: And that is when the button came into play.
[0:07:46 – 0:07:51] Erik: This was a huge changing factor in how fasteners worked.
[0:07:52 – 0:07:52] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[0:07:53 – 0:07:55] Erik: No, we are… Part four, hoods.
[0:07:55 – 0:07:56] Erik: Part four, hoods.
[0:07:56 – 0:07:58] Erik: Hoods.
[0:07:58 – 0:07:58] Erik: Hoods.
[0:07:59 – 0:08:00] Erik: Removable?
[0:08:00 – 0:08:01] Erik: Yes?
[0:08:01 – 0:08:01] Erik: No?
[0:08:02 – 0:08:06] Erik: We’d love to hear from you, guests, listeners.
[0:08:06 – 0:08:09] Erik: Are you pro-hood or anti-hood?
[0:08:11 – 0:08:18] Erik: Do you like one that zips off or one that is too big for anybody’s head and it flops over your face?
[0:08:18 – 0:08:21] Erik: Are those the ones that are meant to go on top of like hats?
[0:08:22 – 0:08:24] Adam: Yeah, you need to have a brim.
[0:08:24 – 0:08:27] Erik: Nobody ever gets the hood right on a rain gear, honestly.
[0:08:27 – 0:08:29] Adam: Yeah, you got to wear a brim.
[0:08:29 – 0:08:31] Adam: You got to find the right hat to go with your hood.
[0:08:32 – 0:08:34] Adam: No hood should stand alone.
[0:08:34 – 0:08:35] Adam: You will never hood alone.
[0:08:36 – 0:08:37] Adam: There it is.
[0:08:38 – 0:08:59] Erik: there it is all right well we are talking about um wildfires specifically the ham lake wildfire 2007 it’s getting up there now in in terms of how long ago that was um we’re going to start with some of our personal experiences with it
[0:09:00 – 0:09:02] Erik: Yours a little bit different than mine.
[0:09:03 – 0:09:07] Erik: And then I’m going to be, it is a book report, referring to a book.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:15] Erik: The man, I think we have book reported the most, Cary J. Griffith and his excellent…
[0:09:16 – 0:09:18] Erik: Gunflint burning, fire in the boundary waters.
[0:09:19 – 0:09:20] Erik: Highly detailed.
[0:09:20 – 0:09:23] Erik: Again, not a replacement for this podcast.
[0:09:24 – 0:09:27] Erik: Or, sorry, we are not replacing the physical act of reading the book.
[0:09:28 – 0:09:36] Erik: The level of detail, almost to a certain extent, is almost hard to keep track of.
[0:09:36 – 0:09:38] Erik: And we’ll kind of get into some of that.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:43] Erik: But it is a feat of strength that Carrie is able to still make it all make sense.
[0:09:44 – 0:09:45] Adam: That’s a pretty good-sized book.
[0:09:46 – 0:09:46] Erik: It is.
[0:09:46 – 0:09:48] Erik: Yeah, there’s a lot in it.
[0:09:48 – 0:09:50] Erik: Very well put together detail-wise.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:51] Adam: So what’s the timeline on it?
[0:09:52 – 0:09:54] Adam: Does it start way before the fire?
[0:09:54 – 0:09:56] Adam: What’s the timeline we’re covering here?
[0:09:56 – 0:09:59] Adam: The day of the fire until the day it was put out?
[0:09:59 – 0:10:00] Adam: Or what are we looking at here?
[0:10:01 – 0:10:12] Erik: Uh, there’s definitely, well, you’ll find out where we start, but the vast majority of the book is focused on essentially the first three days after the fire started.
[0:10:12 – 0:10:22] Erik: And then it kind of goes back and forth between managing the fire and the gentleman who started the fire.
[0:10:22 – 0:10:28] Erik: And there’s one aspect of it that I left out, which is a party camped on Seagull Lake and their experiences of
[0:10:28 – 0:10:32] Erik: seeing it start and how they handled it coming towards them.
[0:10:33 – 0:10:41] Erik: I just didn’t think that that would be something that I would necessarily think added too much to a book report.
[0:10:42 – 0:10:50] Erik: So, yeah, there’s a – I would say close to 20% to 25% of the book that is not even going to be discussed.
[0:10:50 – 0:10:52] Erik: So, yeah, there is definitely –
[0:10:52 – 0:10:56] Erik: a whole reason just there to read it.
[0:10:56 – 0:11:17] Erik: And if you’re really into, into the details, especially like when we talked about lost in the, the lost boys series, which was the last Carrie J Griffith book, we talked about all the detail on like how, like the hierarchy of command and like incident command level three versus five versus who’s in charge.
[0:11:17 – 0:11:19] Erik: Like all of those details, um,
[0:11:20 – 0:11:22] Erik: Some people find those really interesting.
[0:11:22 – 0:11:23] Erik: I’m going to gloss over a lot of those.
[0:11:24 – 0:11:33] Erik: So I’m mostly interested in the big picture stuff and the guy that started the fires, his story.
[0:11:34 – 0:11:38] Adam: Yeah, I’m also interested in the big picture, and I asked, do you have a map?
[0:11:38 – 0:11:42] Adam: And Eric just opened the book to the map and ripped it out and handed it to me.
[0:11:42 – 0:11:50] Adam: So I have a map of the upper Gunflint Trail here in front of me with the fire outline, the fire boundary here.
[0:11:51 – 0:11:52] Adam: I’ve seen the map.
[0:11:52 – 0:11:57] Adam: What I really like, one of my favorite maps, is the one where it shows it’s a different color for each day.
[0:11:58 – 0:12:00] Erik: The one up at the Magnetic Lake Overlook at Gunflint.
[0:12:01 – 0:12:02] Adam: Yeah, that one’s pretty sweet.
[0:12:02 – 0:12:03] Erik: I like that.
[0:12:04 – 0:12:13] Erik: One thing that I’ve never seen until it was on that sign, and if you’re not from the Twin Cities, it doesn’t really help as much.
[0:12:13 – 0:12:21] Erik: But if you’re aware of the scale of how large the Twin Cities and the metro area is, especially with the 494-694 loop, they overlay the size of the fire over the metro area.
[0:12:24 – 0:12:31] Erik: And it really gives you an idea on like, oh, well, that’s what 100,000 acres looks like, which is around what it ended up burning.
[0:12:31 – 0:12:42] Erik: And at the time was the largest fire in Minnesota history, which was quickly surpassed four years later by the Pagami Creek fire.
[0:12:43 – 0:12:44] Erik: Pagami.
[0:12:44 – 0:12:46] Adam: Yeah, I’ve seen the map of the Pagami too.
[0:12:46 – 0:12:48] Adam: And that’s also really interesting.
[0:12:48 – 0:12:48] Adam: Yeah.
[0:12:48 – 0:12:54] Erik: Yeah, you just go onto Google Maps and do the satellite imagery, you can still see clear outlines of both of those fires.
[0:12:54 – 0:12:55] Erik: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[0:12:56 – 0:13:09] Erik: And while there were a number of individuals, especially firefighters, directly in the line of fire when it comes to the Pagami Creek fire, nearly entirely…
[0:13:10 – 0:13:12] Erik: In the wilderness area.
[0:13:12 – 0:13:13] Adam: I don’t think it burned any structures.
[0:13:14 – 0:13:15] Erik: Right.
[0:13:16 – 0:13:23] Erik: The Ham Lake fire is not that, a very destructive fire considering where it was burning.
[0:13:23 – 0:13:35] Erik: So before we get into the timeline, the timeframe of events, I should just say maybe since it chronologically makes more sense,
[0:13:37 – 0:13:44] Erik: Like this fire, the reason it started was, and we’ll probably do an episode on this at some point.
[0:13:44 – 0:13:49] Erik: I don’t know if there’s a great resource that’s all boiled it down into one, but the 1999 blowdown event on July 4th.
[0:13:50 – 0:13:50] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[0:13:52 – 0:14:07] Adam: would be fun to try to find something i mean andy’s like uh stories on you know andy at tuscarora we had his he had uh his account of it that uh yes he generously recorded and shared with us yeah i found that very interesting
[0:14:07 – 0:14:08] Erik: That was last August.
[0:14:08 – 0:14:11] Erik: I think we were talking about, you know, what to do when the wind blows.
[0:14:11 – 0:14:12] Erik: Those are fun.
[0:14:13 – 0:14:32] Erik: Um, but essentially the reason that this fire, uh, occurred, um, outside of conditions were the amount of dead downed fuel essentially predicted as soon as that storm happened by people and your first season on the gun flint and in the North woods, uh, specifically the, uh, um,
[0:14:33 – 0:14:42] Erik: At Clearwater Lodge in 2001, only two years, less than two years removed from that fire, I’m sure Bob and Marty… From the blowdown, yeah.
[0:14:42 – 0:14:45] Erik: From the blowdown, yes.
[0:14:46 – 0:14:47] Erik: I’m sure they had things to say.
[0:14:47 – 0:14:48] Erik: I’m sure it was still like…
[0:14:48 – 0:14:49] Erik: Oh, it was very noticeable.
[0:14:49 – 0:14:54] Adam: It was super fresh on everyone’s mind and very noticeable.
[0:14:55 – 0:15:00] Adam: Um, but you know, I, yeah, I don’t, you know, it never got anywhere near Clearwater.
[0:15:01 – 0:15:10] Adam: I mean, it’s sorta, you know, it did dip back down across the trail, this fire, but, um, and then the, the blow down itself, like kind of didn’t affect the Clearwater loop.
[0:15:10 – 0:15:11] Adam: Not really that badly.
[0:15:11 – 0:15:11] Adam: Um,
[0:15:12 – 0:15:18] Adam: So like it was fresh in everyone’s mind, but like the stuff right around us, you couldn’t really tell from where we were.
[0:15:18 – 0:15:18] Erik: Yeah.
[0:15:18 – 0:15:20] Erik: There was a couple of ridges in the area.
[0:15:21 – 0:15:25] Erik: Like you can still kind of tell there’s that one stretch right before you get to West Bearskin.
[0:15:26 – 0:15:27] Erik: That’s like a much younger growth.
[0:15:28 – 0:15:28] Erik: Yeah.
[0:15:29 – 0:15:30] Erik: That’s, you know.
[0:15:30 – 0:15:43] Erik: But that specific to Clearwater didn’t really get affected, but it still was a pain to clean up, but it wasn’t nearly as like hand of God folding over trees like it was at the end of the gunfight trail.
[0:15:43 – 0:15:53] Adam: Yeah, I mean, I remember them telling us about this derecho that had occurred, but they didn’t personally witness it.
[0:15:53 – 0:15:54] Adam: I mean, it was bad everywhere.
[0:15:54 – 0:15:57] Adam: It was like a crazy storm, but there wasn’t that…
[0:15:58 – 0:16:00] Adam: the leveling of the landscape right around the lodge.
[0:16:00 – 0:16:07] Adam: So I don’t remember, you know, this is now, it’s crazy to think that it was 20 years ago now, more than 20 years ago.
[0:16:07 – 0:16:07] Erik: Yeah.
[0:16:08 – 0:16:14] Adam: Um, I don’t remember like specific, like, you know, any real good stories that they told us as a, as a staff.
[0:16:15 – 0:16:15] Adam: And, uh,
[0:16:16 – 0:16:22] Adam: in that summer, you know, but, uh, I, you know, I did encounter areas where you could, you know, it was fresh.
[0:16:22 – 0:16:22] Erik: Oh yeah.
[0:16:23 – 0:16:33] Adam: You could tell, um, you know, um, but, uh, I remember I, we did me and a couple of the other guys I worked with in a one, we did the Granite River in one day, like not even a full day.
[0:16:33 – 0:16:36] Adam: We just like, we put in on Gunplant Lake at like, you know,
[0:16:37 – 0:17:05] Adam: 12 30 and you know it was like the one of the longer days of the year and like paddled the whole loop out and had left a car up at set at the end of the trail at the landing there and so we went through the granite river area and even then i remember that being like scraggly and kind of old burnt or something because i don’t remember that ever looking different you know because i was there in 2001 and then i came back you know a couple times but i never i never went to the area that ended up getting burnt like right after i got burnt
[0:17:05 – 0:17:07] Erik: Yeah, the Granite River is a history.
[0:17:07 – 0:17:16] Erik: I remember going to when I was growing up in 2003 and being like, it’s fine, but you can clearly tell this is some old fire.
[0:17:17 – 0:17:23] Adam: I remember that 01, there was one big storm in 01 that came through.
[0:17:24 – 0:17:28] Adam: It did knock a few trees down on the cabins and onto the power lines.
[0:17:28 – 0:17:31] Adam: I remember we had no power at the lodge for almost a full day.
[0:17:31 – 0:17:31] Adam: Yeah.
[0:17:33 – 0:17:39] Adam: And I just remember when that was coming in, they were like, get in the cellar.
[0:17:39 – 0:17:43] Adam: We were running through the parking lot to get down in the cellar.
[0:17:43 – 0:17:48] Adam: I remember that way more vividly than any stories about the actual blowdown because I just wasn’t here for it.
[0:17:49 – 0:17:59] Adam: But I think that was something where it was like that the blowdown was so fresh in everybody’s mind that anything where it was like you see a tree come down and people were freaking out.
[0:17:59 – 0:18:00] Adam: It was like, get in the basement.
[0:18:00 – 0:18:01] Adam: It’s a cellar.
[0:18:03 – 0:18:06] Adam: So we’re all, like, huddled down in the cellar, and we come out, and, like, the power’s out.
[0:18:07 – 0:18:10] Adam: And, you know, it was kind of for them, I’m sure, like, oh, God, again.
[0:18:10 – 0:18:11] Adam: Yeah, here we go again.
[0:18:11 – 0:18:13] Adam: You know, two years later, and power’s out.
[0:18:13 – 0:18:18] Adam: And I remember, like, it was some big trees down, you know, no, like, major damage.
[0:18:18 – 0:18:22] Adam: But they had to, like, restring the whole power line out to, like, the cabins on the point.
[0:18:23 – 0:18:24] Erik: Yeah, we had to do that at Clearwater just –
[0:18:26 – 0:18:29] Erik: Well, it’s not just yesterday at this point.
[0:18:29 – 0:18:30] Erik: It’s a few years ago.
[0:18:30 – 0:18:33] Erik: I remember I was at your place when you lived up on the trail.
[0:18:33 – 0:18:34] Erik: We were watching Game of Thrones.
[0:18:34 – 0:18:35] Erik: Yeah.
[0:18:35 – 0:18:38] Erik: And me and Tori drove home and it just kept getting worse and worse.
[0:18:38 – 0:18:42] Erik: And like, oh, there’s some branches and then some limbs and then full trees.
[0:18:43 – 0:18:48] Erik: And then we got to Clearwater and it was just like, yeah, watch where you drive because there are power lines down on the ground.
[0:18:50 – 0:18:54] Erik: They had to literally re-dig holes for power line posts going out to those cabins.
[0:18:56 – 0:19:00] Erik: So my second season at Clearwater…
[0:19:01 – 0:19:03] Erik: I don’t remember exactly how aware I was.
[0:19:03 – 0:19:17] Erik: I was pretty sure I was like aware that the, the fire was happening, but all I remember is driving up the North shore and seeing the like pyro cumulus clouds.
[0:19:17 – 0:19:23] Erik: Cause it was at night and you could see them in the distance and it was just constant lightning and no thunder.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:24] Erik: Like I didn’t ever heard any thunder.
[0:19:24 – 0:19:31] Erik: It was just constant lightning flashing the whole way up the shore and getting to the lodge and,
[0:19:32 – 0:19:37] Erik: Clearwater Road being the last road that you could physically drive to.
[0:19:37 – 0:19:42] Erik: Everything beyond that was blocked and was forced evacuation.
[0:19:43 – 0:19:47] Erik: Clearwater was a suggested evacuation, like you guys should probably go.
[0:19:49 – 0:19:56] Erik: And I helped the next day load up basically all of the Diamond Willow furniture and any of the historical artifacts from the lodge.
[0:19:56 – 0:19:57] Adam: Yeah, that’s wild.
[0:19:57 – 0:19:58] Adam: I remember you telling me that.
[0:19:58 – 0:20:02] Erik: All of the vans, all of the trucks, everything was just emptied.
[0:20:02 – 0:20:06] Erik: And we were ready to go at the drop of a hat whenever we had to.
[0:20:07 – 0:20:08] Erik: Just retreat to Grand Marais.
[0:20:10 – 0:20:10] Erik: And we never did.
[0:20:11 – 0:20:15] Erik: But we’ll get into maybe how close things came.
[0:20:16 – 0:20:19] Adam: Yeah, I wasn’t, you know, even up here in the year of the fire.
[0:20:19 – 0:20:24] Erik: Do you remember if you were aware, like, in 2007 that, like, oh, there’s a fire burning up there right now?
[0:20:24 – 0:20:27] Adam: Oh, yeah, no, like, I was, let’s see, I would have been in Madison.
[0:20:27 – 0:20:28] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:20:30 – 0:20:31] Adam: Yeah, I think it was Madison 07 or…
[0:20:35 – 0:20:37] Adam: No, but I remember reading about it.
[0:20:37 – 0:20:45] Adam: People were sending me links for stories about it and getting emails from people up there and kind of monitoring it from afar.
[0:20:45 – 0:20:47] Adam: But it was for sure in the news.
[0:20:47 – 0:20:50] Adam: It was definitely something you heard about immediately.
[0:20:50 – 0:21:12] Erik: yeah i think i was like vaguely aware of it just from the news i don’t know if i got any messages from the owners of clearwater at the time like hey be prepared i think i may have because it was my second summer and they knew i was coming back um i don’t know though yeah it was early in the season you know yes uh i wasn’t around but i do i had like a similar thing with the pagami fire i had like
[0:21:12 – 0:21:41] Adam: taking a little mini trip down to wisconsin i think it was like a namakagan river trip or something i’d gone down for like a three-day trip northern wisconsin i was driving back up the shore and it was like you could see like it was this kind of storm or whatever and i just drove into like a bank of like smoke yeah it was down on 61 billowing down there and that was like the day that the pagami creek made the big run yeah it’s a super windy day you know and it was just like whoa i had no idea you know i got up and it was like
[0:21:42 – 0:22:03] Erik: what’s going on and they’re like oh there’s a huge fire going yeah and I had been camping so I hadn’t heard anything about it I kind of got blindsided by it kind of like that driving up you’re like what the hell is this yeah I was yeah like I said I knew it was like a thing that was happening but I didn’t really necessarily realize I think it was toward kind of towards the like middle part of when it was like okay
[0:22:03 – 0:22:05] Erik: This thing’s definitely out of control.
[0:22:06 – 0:22:13] Erik: One of the first things that I remember hearing, we went up to one of the like fire hall meetings where they were like debriefing the day’s events.
[0:22:14 – 0:22:20] Erik: And one of like the scariest things that I heard them say was like, we won’t be able to put this out unless we get rain.
[0:22:21 – 0:22:22] Erik: Like it’s that out of control.
[0:22:23 – 0:22:23] Adam: Yeah.
[0:22:24 – 0:22:32] Erik: And just the idea of a summer completely being wasted because they canceled all of the overnight camping permits.
[0:22:32 – 0:22:34] Erik: You couldn’t go into the Boundary Waters.
[0:22:34 – 0:22:36] Erik: Half the Gunflint Trail was closed.
[0:22:36 – 0:22:39] Erik: And I was like, well, I don’t even know if I’m going to have a job.
[0:22:40 – 0:22:40] Erik: Sure.
[0:22:40 – 0:22:41] Erik: It doesn’t rain.
[0:22:41 – 0:22:42] Erik: That’s a scary thought.
[0:22:42 – 0:22:44] Erik: They’re like, yeah, it literally has to rain.
[0:22:44 – 0:22:48] Erik: There’s not enough water that we can pick up out of lakes to put this thing out.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:50] Erik: We need the weather to change.
[0:22:51 – 0:22:52] Erik: And spoiler alert.
[0:22:52 – 0:23:22] Erik: did it did a change but should we get into it yeah let’s hit it all right we are we’re going all the way back july 12th 1991 so that answers that question should have started there 91 1991 you didn’t think i was going to start there did you it was way before i even knew knew about the boundary waters
[0:23:22 – 0:23:24] Erik: I was unaware as well.
[0:23:25 – 0:23:28] Erik: Six-year-old wilderness concepts had not formed in my brain.
[0:23:30 – 0:23:38] Erik: It’s close to 4 a.m. at Wendigo Lodge on the shores of Poplar Lake, just one lake removed from the vast BWCA wilderness.
[0:23:39 – 0:23:41] Adam: I can’t believe we’re starting the story at Wendigo.
[0:23:41 – 0:23:42] Adam: We’re going to start at Wendigo.
[0:23:43 – 0:23:43] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:43 – 0:23:46] SPEAKER_00: So, again, just to reiterate, Carrie J. Griffith.
[0:23:47 – 0:23:48] Erik: These, unless… Thoreau.
[0:23:49 – 0:23:58] Erik: Unless I say that it’s a direct quote from the book, these are my reinterpretations and paraphrasings and injecting some of my own thoughts.
[0:23:59 – 0:24:01] Erik: Some of the details you really just can’t change.
[0:24:02 – 0:24:04] Erik: But when I’m quoting directly from Cary, I will let you know.
[0:24:04 – 0:24:08] Adam: The T in Cary T. Griffith stands for Thoreau.
[0:24:09 – 0:24:09] Adam: It’s J.
[0:24:10 – 0:24:10] Adam: No.
[0:24:11 – 0:24:11] Adam: No.
[0:24:11 – 0:24:12] Adam: Eric.
[0:24:12 – 0:24:13] Erik: It’s not J.
[0:24:13 – 0:24:14] Erik: It’s T for Thoreau.
[0:24:16 – 0:24:23] Erik: So, Wendigo Lodge at the time was a three-story establishment with the main floor existing as a restaurant slash bar, rec room, and laundry.
[0:24:23 – 0:24:26] Erik: The second floor housed 10 rooms and two bathrooms.
[0:24:27 – 0:24:30] Erik: And the third floor was employee and owner living spaces.
[0:24:30 – 0:24:31] Adam: Holy smokes.
[0:24:32 – 0:24:32] Erik: Yeah.
[0:24:32 – 0:24:32] Erik: It was like a hostel.
[0:24:33 – 0:24:34] Erik: Even bigger than it is today.
[0:24:35 – 0:24:37] Erik: It’s no longer the Wendigo, but that building.
[0:24:37 – 0:24:40] Adam: I stayed at a place with a similar floor plan in Belgium one time.
[0:24:41 – 0:24:41] Adam: Wow.
[0:24:41 – 0:24:41] Erik: Yeah.
[0:24:41 – 0:24:42] Erik: Yeah.
[0:24:43 – 0:24:44] Erik: True story.
[0:24:44 – 0:24:54] Erik: The resort also had three cabins adjacent that housed guests, and it was one of these guests who awoke in the early morning darkness to the sounds of screaming and breaking glass.
[0:24:55 – 0:25:01] Erik: Dwayne Anderson quickly dressed and ran from his cabin to find the lodge already in flames and people jumping from windows.
[0:25:02 – 0:25:16] Erik: He was able to make his way inside the smoky establishment and call 911 at 421 a.m. At this time, the closest fire station was at Maple Hill, just outside of Grand Marais, 31 miles away down the Gunflint Trail.
[0:25:18 – 0:25:19] Erik: There’s no way to say for sure.
[0:25:19 – 0:25:20] Erik: Um.
[0:25:24 – 0:25:31] Erik: What the reason was, sorry, there is no way to say for sure, but was not the only reason.
[0:25:31 – 0:25:39] Erik: Okay, so that the distance of how far away the fire station one was, was not the only reason for the tragedy that was about to unfold in the Northwoods.
[0:25:40 – 0:25:52] Erik: On top of the lack of a timely emergency response, the construction of the lodge created an opportunity for the fire to grow quickly, with its log construction and open stairwell all the way to the top floor.
[0:25:53 – 0:26:02] Erik: The lodge was undergoing some renovations at the time, which may be an explanation as to why there were no operational smoke detectors, fire alarms, or sprinkler systems.
[0:26:03 – 0:26:07] Erik: There were no posted fire evacuation plans or outdoor fire escapes.
[0:26:08 – 0:26:17] Erik: There was never an explanation as to how the fire started, but the deficiencies of the building went a long way in contributing to the deaths of seven people that night, both guests and employees.
[0:26:19 – 0:26:22] Erik: This was half of the people sleeping in the lodge that night.
[0:26:23 – 0:26:24] Erik: If there is a silver lining…
[0:26:25 – 0:26:45] Erik: to this tragedy it was that it started the conversation on a volunteer fire department and within two years the gunflint trail volunteer fire department was established which created three stations along the trail and would go a long way in eventually protecting life and property from a conflagration that would rage 16 years later
[0:26:46 – 0:26:46] Adam: I see.
[0:26:46 – 0:26:47] Adam: Okay.
[0:26:48 – 0:26:49] Adam: That’s why we’re talking about it.
[0:26:49 – 0:26:50] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:51 – 0:26:53] Adam: I didn’t realize that’s why they started the volunteer fire department.
[0:26:54 – 0:26:54] Erik: Yep, exactly.
[0:26:55 – 0:26:58] Erik: There was just no help.
[0:26:59 – 0:27:02] Adam: It doesn’t sound like even if they had the station, you know…
[0:27:03 – 0:27:03] Adam: Right there.
[0:27:03 – 0:27:04] Adam: Right next door, it would have helped.
[0:27:05 – 0:27:08] Adam: But, yeah, I mean, they pointed out a glaring weakness.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:11] Adam: Got to have some firefighters.
[0:27:11 – 0:27:15] Erik: Yeah, and now the Gunflint Trail has three full stations.
[0:27:15 – 0:27:19] Erik: It’s probably close to two dozen volunteer members.
[0:27:22 – 0:27:29] Erik: It’s, yeah, there’s probably people that live on the Gunflint Trail that are closer to fire departments than a lot of people in cities, honestly.
[0:27:31 – 0:27:35] Erik: At the age of 63, sorry, we’re moving to May.
[0:27:35 – 0:27:37] Adam: Don’t all stairwells go to the top, though?
[0:27:37 – 0:27:38] Adam: What the hell is that about?
[0:27:39 – 0:27:39] Adam: I think it was just.
[0:27:39 – 0:27:41] Adam: Oh, their stairs went all the way to the third floor.
[0:27:41 – 0:27:43] Erik: I think it was the open nature of it.
[0:27:43 – 0:27:44] Adam: Like it was a spiral staircase.
[0:27:44 – 0:27:46] Erik: There wasn’t doors on each floor.
[0:27:47 – 0:27:48] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:27:48 – 0:27:49] Adam: To stop like.
[0:27:49 – 0:27:50] Adam: Well, I mean, it’s an old lodge.
[0:27:51 – 0:27:53] Adam: Clearwater Lodge’s stairs also go all the way to the top.
[0:27:54 – 0:27:54] Erik: That’s true.
[0:27:54 – 0:27:55] Erik: No, there’s a lot to say.
[0:27:55 – 0:27:57] Erik: Yeah, I mean, it was the age of it for sure.
[0:27:58 – 0:27:59] Erik: Yeah.
[0:27:59 – 0:28:00] Erik: So we jumped to May 3rd, 2007.
[0:28:03 – 0:28:15] Erik: At the age of 63 and recently retired from a career in data safety, Steve Posniak woke up alone on the morning of May 3, 2007, in one of Tuscarora Lodge and Outfitters’ bunkhouses.
[0:28:16 – 0:28:20] Adam: I feel like Steve Posniak was the co-founder of Apple.
[0:28:20 – 0:28:21] Adam: Is that right?
[0:28:21 – 0:28:23] Erik: I think it’s Wozniak.
[0:28:24 – 0:28:25] Erik: That’s him.
[0:28:25 – 0:28:26] Erik: Pretty close.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:28] Erik: Yeah.
[0:28:28 – 0:28:31] Erik: He was preparing for his 27th trip into the Bonjewaters Canoe Area wilderness.
[0:28:32 – 0:28:39] Erik: And though this morning started off relatively cool, the weather in the Northwoods up to this point had been dry with temperatures well above average.
[0:28:41 – 0:29:06] Erik: Because it was so early in the season and it was before the state fishing opener, he was the only one being outfitted that day, but decided to postpone entering by a day and spent it hiking in the area and on May 4th was dropped off at the Cross Bay Lake parking lot with intentions on paddling and portaging into Cross Bay Lake through Ham, where he would spend two nights base camping before exiting the way he entered.
[0:29:07 – 0:29:14] Erik: At the time, Andy and Sue Arendt, or Arendt, I never had the opportunity to meet either of them.
[0:29:14 – 0:29:15] Erik: Arendt.
[0:29:15 – 0:29:17] Erik: A-H-R-E-N-D-T.
[0:29:18 – 0:29:23] Erik: They owned Tusk since 2004 when they purchased it from Cary Leeds.
[0:29:24 – 0:29:33] Erik: Cary had gotten to know Posniak from his annual spring trips and remembers him for both his intelligence but also lack of common sense and planning skills.
[0:29:34 – 0:29:35] Erik: This seems in conflict.
[0:29:37 – 0:29:41] Erik: Well, I think he’s kind of a book smart guy sort of thing.
[0:29:41 – 0:29:43] Erik: Not wilderness or street smart, maybe.
[0:29:44 – 0:29:45] Erik: Okay.
[0:29:45 – 0:29:47] Erik: He’s working in data analysis.
[0:29:48 – 0:29:56] Erik: Yeah, that takes some intelligence, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to having your ducks in a row when you’re trying to plan a bonjour artist trip.
[0:29:57 – 0:29:59] Adam: So this was his 27th trip.
[0:29:59 – 0:30:00] Erik: But he had taken a lot of them.
[0:30:01 – 0:30:02] Adam: Two-nighter.
[0:30:02 – 0:30:03] Adam: I mean, what can go wrong?
[0:30:04 – 0:30:05] Erik: What can go wrong?
[0:30:05 – 0:30:07] Adam: Two-night trip before the fishing opener.
[0:30:07 – 0:30:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:30:09 – 0:30:10] Erik: Before green up.
[0:30:10 – 0:30:12] Adam: That’s a really neat time of year.
[0:30:12 – 0:30:13] Adam: It’s super quiet.
[0:30:13 – 0:30:14] Adam: It is.
[0:30:14 – 0:30:15] Adam: That week before fishing opener.
[0:30:16 – 0:30:18] Adam: If you got open water, you know, that’s some good times.
[0:30:18 – 0:30:19] Erik: Well, it used to be.
[0:30:19 – 0:30:19] Erik: We’ll see.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:38] Erik: By late afternoon on the 4th, he had determined the three portages and solo paddling would be enough and deviated from his original plans by setting up a camp at the first campsite he came across on the north shore of Ham Lake in a narrow waterway before the lake opened up around the corner.
[0:30:39 – 0:30:39] Erik: You know the site.
[0:30:40 – 0:30:41] Adam: Oh, so this is the guy.
[0:30:42 – 0:30:42] Erik: Well…
[0:30:43 – 0:30:43] Adam: Okay.
[0:30:45 – 0:30:46] Adam: I see where this is going.
[0:30:47 – 0:30:48] Adam: Yeah, I know the site.
[0:30:48 – 0:30:48] Adam: It’s right there.
[0:30:48 – 0:30:49] Adam: You can’t miss it.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:55] Erik: So, I mean, just to give you an idea on Steve Posniak…
[0:30:57 – 0:31:13] Erik: And this isn’t necessarily like me judging him or anybody who’s like him who decides to call it a day, like less than a mile in on a trip after three portages.
[0:31:13 – 0:31:17] Adam: He’s only on a two-day trip and he already postponed it by a day to go hiking instead?
[0:31:18 – 0:31:19] Erik: Yes, because it was cold.
[0:31:20 – 0:31:49] Erik: oh it was cold yeah it was cold stay in the bunkhouse right yeah exactly do some day trips at that point why even but he had a cross bay lake permit which is like well so he even make it yeah you didn’t even need to get that um but it’s just like yeah all right i mean the first available campsite first available campsite i’m done i’m done for the day i mean i mean depending on what all he had with him that’s better than car camping yeah for sure just barely
[0:31:50 – 0:31:50] Erik: Yeah.
[0:31:50 – 0:31:51] Adam: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:31:51 – 0:31:52] Adam: That is odd to me.
[0:31:52 – 0:31:57] Adam: I mean, as soon as you say you postponed it to go hiking the first day, it’s like, where did he come from?
[0:31:57 – 0:32:00] Adam: He drove way up here from somewhere, right?
[0:32:00 – 0:32:01] Adam: He’s from out east.
[0:32:01 – 0:32:02] Adam: From out east?
[0:32:02 – 0:32:02] Adam: Yeah.
[0:32:02 – 0:32:03] Adam: And he came up here.
[0:32:03 – 0:32:04] Adam: He’s done 27 trips.
[0:32:04 – 0:32:06] Adam: And then he’s like, I’ll just take it easy.
[0:32:06 – 0:32:08] Adam: I guess it maybe was windy.
[0:32:08 – 0:32:11] Erik: But it sounds like that was sort of the trip he took every year.
[0:32:11 – 0:32:13] Erik: Just go kind of barely in and camp for a few days.
[0:32:13 – 0:32:15] Adam: There’s nothing wrong with a lazy trip.
[0:32:15 – 0:32:16] Adam: No, I don’t think there’s a lazy trip.
[0:32:16 – 0:32:17] Adam: Especially that time of year.
[0:32:17 – 0:32:17] Adam: It’s like, who cares?
[0:32:18 – 0:32:19] Adam: Nobody else is going to even be on Ham Lake probably.
[0:32:20 – 0:32:24] Erik: At the end of the day, I don’t think that it is, but it just does not strike me as.
[0:32:24 – 0:32:28] Erik: And maybe it’s because I put in there so many times, and I just couldn’t fathom being like, well, we’re stopping here.
[0:32:28 – 0:32:30] Adam: And there’s so many better spots on Ham Lake.
[0:32:30 – 0:32:33] Adam: If you’re like, okay, fine, I’m not going to get to Cross Bay Lake.
[0:32:33 – 0:32:35] Adam: Go down to one of the good sites on Ham then.
[0:32:36 – 0:32:36] Erik: Right.
[0:32:37 – 0:32:37] Erik: At least do that.
[0:32:37 – 0:32:39] Erik: There’s a couple other ones around the corner.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:41] Adam: All right.
[0:32:41 – 0:32:45] Adam: Well, did he say, was there anybody else camped on Ham that night?
[0:32:45 – 0:32:53] Erik: Also entering at Cross Bay Lake on the afternoon of May 4th was a group of eight U.S. Forest Service Air Resource Management Program members.
[0:32:53 – 0:32:57] Erik: And as they passed by Steve at his campsite on Ham, where he was found…
[0:32:57 – 0:32:58] Adam: They gave him the finger.
[0:32:58 – 0:32:59] Erik: He was… Bozo.
[0:32:59 – 0:33:02] Erik: This is also an explanation, I think, into this…
[0:33:04 – 0:33:04] Erik: I don’t…
[0:33:05 – 0:33:08] Erik: Throughout these episodes, I want to be careful to not…
[0:33:09 – 0:33:16] Erik: It’s tough because he’s characterized in such a way in his book that it’s hard not to let that bleed into the commentary here.
[0:33:16 – 0:33:18] Adam: Yeah, I don’t know anything about the guy.
[0:33:18 – 0:33:23] Erik: Specifically the way that he is referred to as a solo overweight camper.
[0:33:24 – 0:33:27] Erik: Overweight is almost always included in not just…
[0:33:27 – 0:33:28] Adam: His first name.
[0:33:28 – 0:33:37] Erik: Not just Kerry, but like literal quotes are like from like, you know, law enforcement going back and forth.
[0:33:37 – 0:33:39] Erik: It’s always that he’s overweight.
[0:33:40 – 0:33:52] Erik: But in this case, as that group of eight paddles down, paddled past, they noticed that when they went by, he was wearing headphones and he took them off long enough to make small talk about campsite availability on the lake.
[0:33:53 – 0:33:53] Erik: But he wouldn’t know.
[0:33:54 – 0:33:54] Erik: No, he wouldn’t.
[0:33:55 – 0:34:01] Erik: But also like just the idea of wearing headphones in camp during the day, like in 2007.
[0:34:01 – 0:34:03] Erik: Yeah, you’re painting a picture and I don’t like it.
[0:34:04 – 0:34:07] Erik: He’s probably just like, what do you think he was listening to?
[0:34:08 – 0:34:10] Erik: Why do you have headphones on in the boundary waters?
[0:34:11 – 0:34:12] Erik: I get earplugs.
[0:34:12 – 0:34:14] Erik: Third eye blind.
[0:34:14 – 0:34:14] Erik: 63.
[0:34:14 – 0:34:16] Erik: I don’t think he’s plugged into third eye blind.
[0:34:16 – 0:34:17] Erik: What?
[0:34:17 – 0:34:17] Adam: I don’t know why.
[0:34:18 – 0:34:19] Adam: Those are the first two that came to mind.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:21] Adam: God, I don’t know.
[0:34:21 – 0:34:25] Adam: I mean, cause I want to like kind of make fun of the guy, but also I kind of know how the story ends.
[0:34:25 – 0:34:27] Adam: I don’t want to be like too rude.
[0:34:27 – 0:34:27] Erik: Right.
[0:34:27 – 0:34:28] Erik: Exactly.
[0:34:28 – 0:34:30] Erik: That’s sort of where I’m coming from as well.
[0:34:30 – 0:34:31] Adam: Can we have fun with this guy or not?
[0:34:32 – 0:34:34] Erik: That’s the struggle as I was going through.
[0:34:34 – 0:34:34] Adam: I don’t think we can.
[0:34:34 – 0:34:35] Adam: I don’t feel right.
[0:34:35 – 0:34:42] Erik: Putting this whole thing together, it’s like, well, boy, I don’t know how much actual fun and jokiness we can have about this guy.
[0:34:43 – 0:34:47] Erik: I think there’s a lot of fun and jokiness we can have about other parts of the story.
[0:34:47 – 0:34:50] Adam: Well, it’s a pretty serious story the whole way through.
[0:34:51 – 0:34:51] Erik: It is.
[0:34:51 – 0:34:53] Adam: This is definitely not my wheelhouse.
[0:34:54 – 0:34:55] Adam: I’m glad you read this one.
[0:34:56 – 0:35:00] Erik: Well, we’ll try our best to balance the, is it levity or brevity?
[0:35:00 – 0:35:01] Erik: I can never remember.
[0:35:02 – 0:35:02] Adam: Levity.
[0:35:02 – 0:35:03] Erik: Okay.
[0:35:03 – 0:35:07] Erik: Well, we’ll try to keep the levity sprinkled in enough so that we all don’t get too sad.
[0:35:08 – 0:35:19] Erik: But because of the stiff winds that we’re picking up, the group of eight decided to set up a camp down on Ham Lake for that night, just one campsite down, that one that’s on the- So they got the good one.
[0:35:19 – 0:35:20] Erik: They got the good one on the point.
[0:35:20 – 0:35:22] Adam: That’s a good campsite for skinny dipping.
[0:35:22 – 0:35:24] Adam: See, we can have fun like that.
[0:35:24 – 0:35:24] Erik: Yeah.
[0:35:25 – 0:35:25] Adam: It’s true.
[0:35:25 – 0:35:28] Adam: It’s a really good one for nude bathing.
[0:35:28 – 0:35:32] Erik: Yeah, you have great access to the whale slash boot rock.
[0:35:33 – 0:35:35] Adam: Yeah, I give that campsite a five out of five.
[0:35:35 – 0:35:37] Erik: We’ll review him like one of these days.
[0:35:37 – 0:35:37] Erik: We should.
[0:35:37 – 0:35:42] Erik: Steve went about setting up camp and enjoyed dinner next to the fire before retiring to his tent for the night.
[0:35:42 – 0:35:43] Adam: What do you have for dinner?
[0:35:44 – 0:35:44] Erik: I don’t remember.
[0:35:45 – 0:35:47] Erik: Probably some delicious…
[0:35:47 – 0:35:49] Adam: Probably something wholesome and wonderful.
[0:35:50 – 0:35:57] Erik: On the morning of May 5th, Steve woke up to temperatures in the low 40s and a light wind that had oddly been blowing through the night.
[0:35:58 – 0:35:59] Erik: About 40 miles to the south…
[0:36:00 – 0:36:07] Erik: Kurt Schierenbeck was out on his back deck looking out over Lake Superior.
[0:36:08 – 0:36:18] Erik: He noted the early morning winds and stepped out onto his lawn, ran his hands through the grass, noting the lack of dew that would typically be found this time of year.
[0:36:21 – 0:36:23] Erik: Kurt was the District Fire Manager Officer.
[0:36:23 – 0:36:26] Erik: This is a quote, sorry, directly from the book.
[0:36:26 – 0:36:32] Erik: District Fire Manager Officer for the Gunflint District of the Superior National Forest.
[0:36:32 – 0:36:34] Erik: He was a 35-year veteran.
[0:36:35 – 0:36:37] Erik: Almost all of it spent in fire.
[0:36:38 – 0:36:44] Erik: He was recognized as an expert and held the red card that indicated he was a Type 3 Incident Commander.
[0:36:45 – 0:36:47] Adam: So he’s like being played by Kurt Russell in the movie for sure.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:47] Adam: Probably.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:48] Adam: Probably.
[0:36:49 – 0:36:51] Adam: I thought you said he was going to run his hands through his hair.
[0:36:51 – 0:36:52] Adam: Hands through the grass.
[0:36:53 – 0:36:56] Adam: But it was through dude grass, so I was like, oh, it’s Kurt Russell for sure.
[0:36:56 – 0:37:04] Erik: You can just see it just hand through the grass like his hands through the end of Gladiator and then just up to the lips.
[0:37:04 – 0:37:04] Erik: It’s dry.
[0:37:04 – 0:37:05] Erik: It’s too dry.
[0:37:05 – 0:37:06] Erik: There’s no dew.
[0:37:06 – 0:37:07] Erik: Too dry.
[0:37:08 – 0:37:16] Erik: The red card told others in the U.S. Forest Service he had a lot of class time, field works, and fire and disaster management experience.
[0:37:16 – 0:37:19] Adam: It also means he’s a dirty tackler in football.
[0:37:20 – 0:37:41] Erik: According to the U.S. Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, the incident command system is a, quote, set of personal, personnel, policies, procedures, facilities, and equipment integrated into a common organizational structure designed to improve emergency response operations of all types and complexities.
[0:37:42 – 0:37:46] Erik: ICS is a subcomponent of the National Incident Management System, NIMS.
[0:37:47 – 0:37:49] Erik: as released by the US Department of Homeland Security in 2004.
[0:37:52 – 0:37:57] Erik: Could you imagine being involved in setting all that up?
[0:37:57 – 0:38:00] Adam: If I ever start working for the government, just slap me really hard.
[0:38:01 – 0:38:04] Adam: I’ll just read that sentence back to you.
[0:38:04 – 0:38:05] Adam: Verbal slap.
[0:38:06 – 0:38:14] Erik: In instances of natural and human-caused disasters, including wildfires, incident commanders, ICs, are the leaders of personnel and equipment.
[0:38:14 – 0:38:20] Erik: ICs are rated from Type V, 5, which in a wildfire situation might be an unintended campfire.
[0:38:20 – 0:38:25] Erik: to a Type 1, the most severe and complex wildfire.
[0:38:25 – 0:38:31] Erik: Kurt was a Type 3, which requires the oversight of extensive equipment and people to fight a serious wildfire.
[0:38:32 – 0:38:35] Erik: So, there’s a lot more on that.
[0:38:35 – 0:38:44] Erik: If you’re interested in the hierarchy of needs, incident command levels, you read this book and you will get your fill, I can assure you.
[0:38:44 – 0:38:45] Erik: Platoon rosters.
[0:38:46 – 0:38:54] Erik: Yeah, it can only be surmised through witness accounts how Steve started his first fire of the day on that chilly morning.
[0:38:56 – 0:39:10] Erik: It seems he must have felt his fire had gotten out of hand and doused it because as a group of two that had put in earlier that morning at Cross Bay passed by camp, they noticed him standing next to a smoldering, smoking fire grate without any flames present.
[0:39:11 – 0:39:26] Erik: This matches up with the group of eight U.S. Forest Service members camped just down the lake from them, recalling a large amount of smoke that quickly diminished coming from his site just before noticing the tandem canoe come around the point he was camped at.
[0:39:30 – 0:39:38] Erik: The exact chain of events that happened next, as only witnessed by Steve, again, can only be guessed at.
[0:39:40 – 0:39:40] Adam: What time is this?
[0:39:41 – 0:39:47] Erik: This is the morning, roughly 10.30, 11 on the morning of May 5th.
[0:39:47 – 0:39:49] Adam: He’s probably ripping up some biters.
[0:39:49 – 0:39:51] Adam: He’s probably getting some biters for breakfast.
[0:39:51 – 0:39:52] Adam: Yeah, I think so.
[0:39:53 – 0:39:54] Adam: That’s what I would be doing.
[0:39:55 – 0:40:00] Erik: So clearly he started a fire and it got maybe a little too out of hand and he put it out.
[0:40:00 – 0:40:02] Adam: He had the night wind going.
[0:40:02 – 0:40:03] Adam: There was no dew.
[0:40:03 – 0:40:03] Adam: Yeah.
[0:40:05 – 0:40:07] Adam: Yeah, and he doused it.
[0:40:08 – 0:40:10] Adam: You should douse this fire.
[0:40:10 – 0:40:12] Erik: I did not ask you to start it, child.
[0:40:13 – 0:40:15] Adam: There’s another Auntie Whispers.
[0:40:15 – 0:40:16] Adam: That’s two episodes in a row, Eric.
[0:40:16 – 0:40:20] Erik: I think if you go back, there’s a good percentage of Auntie Whispers in most of our episodes.
[0:40:20 – 0:40:25] Adam: How many episodes have Auntie Whispers in them at this point?
[0:40:26 – 0:40:31] Erik: So, again, we and Carrie J. Griffith can only guess.
[0:40:31 – 0:40:32] Adam: They interview him after.
[0:40:33 – 0:40:33] Adam: What the hell did he say?
[0:40:34 – 0:40:34] Erik: Well, we’ll get to that.
[0:40:34 – 0:40:35] Erik: All right.
[0:40:35 – 0:40:37] Erik: But after dousing his fire, he sat and read.
[0:40:38 – 0:40:41] Erik: Oh, he also packed in newspaper just like to read.
[0:40:42 – 0:40:45] Erik: He would read newspapers in camp and listen to something with headphones.
[0:40:45 – 0:40:47] Adam: He was probably listening to the Cubs game.
[0:40:48 – 0:40:49] Adam: Where was he from?
[0:40:50 – 0:40:50] Adam: Out east?
[0:40:51 – 0:40:51] Adam: Yeah, out east.
[0:40:52 – 0:40:52] Adam: Good lord.
[0:40:52 – 0:41:00] Adam: He was probably listening to the real estate listings and reading real estate listings in the Times.
[0:41:01 – 0:41:03] Erik: So after dousing his fire, he sat and read a newspaper.
[0:41:04 – 0:41:05] Adam: This is all surmised.
[0:41:05 – 0:41:06] Adam: It was the Sunday Times.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:07] Adam: I just checked.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:08] Erik: Okay.
[0:41:08 – 0:41:09] Erik: Surmised.
[0:41:10 – 0:41:11] Erik: Nobody knows for sure.
[0:41:12 – 0:41:12] Erik: Only Steve does.
[0:41:13 – 0:41:16] Erik: And Steve gets questionable in his story going forward.
[0:41:16 – 0:41:24] Erik: But this, based on the chain of events and the physical evidence left by Steve at his campsite…
[0:41:25 – 0:41:50] Erik: We can guess that after dousing his fire, he sat and read a bit of newspaper he had brought along and maybe noticed the group of four U.S. Forest Service canoes heading south towards the portage out of Ham Lake into Cross Bay River slash Lake around 10 a.m. At some point, he crumpled up the newspaper and shoved it into the fire grate amongst the remaining coals from his doused fire and stoked it up enough to get the paper to flame up and then go out.
[0:41:52 – 0:42:06] Erik: He then set about packing up his gear inside his tent, and it was during this time that a strong gust of wind must have blown some of the lightweight newspaper embers into the woods where it settled into the dry duff of the forest floor and its tiny spark took hold.
[0:42:07 – 0:42:17] Erik: It quickly spread across the pine needle-covered ground before jumping up into nearby dead branches and then continued to rapidly double in size as it found more nearby brush.
[0:42:18 – 0:42:28] Erik: The main reason that that is assumed as to what happened is because later on when they go to that site, it is clear that the fire did not start from the fire grate.
[0:42:29 – 0:42:32] Erik: It started out in the back of the campsite.
[0:42:34 – 0:42:41] Erik: The feeling that Steve must have had as he turned towards camp after exiting his tent must have been unimaginable.
[0:42:42 – 0:42:50] Erik: The flames were now rapidly spreading to the brush, and Steve tried stomping and kicking at the flames, which probably sent more sparks flying.
[0:42:51 – 0:42:56] Erik: He ran back to his tent to grab a small plastic container and then down to the water in an attempt to douse the flames.
[0:42:57 – 0:43:03] Erik: His hopes of extinguishing them were met with a light sizzle as he flung his inadequate amount of water in their direction.
[0:43:05 – 0:43:10] Erik: He spent the next half hour exhausting himself in the futile effort as the flames grew taller and wider.
[0:43:12 – 0:43:28] Erik: Considering the layout of the campsite on the tip of an almost island slash narrow point, and since the winds were mainly out of the south and his tent and equipment were, at the time, safe, he thought if he could keep the flames from blowing north across the narrow point into the mainland of woods beyond the flames…
[0:43:30 – 0:43:51] Erik: they would just eventually run out of fuel so essentially that campsite is like on a on a tip of a point but then it kind of like tapers down into like a little a little low land where it’s not quite an island and then it kind of goes back into the woods he’s like if i can just keep it to this tip of the point yeah all right i mean i burned a few trees down but it’s gonna all go out
[0:43:51 – 0:43:55] Adam: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it’s not a bad spot to be trying to put out.
[0:43:55 – 0:43:56] Adam: You could isolate it.
[0:43:56 – 0:43:56] Adam: Yeah.
[0:43:56 – 0:43:58] Adam: Yeah, we’ve seen it.
[0:43:58 – 0:44:02] Adam: It’s just out on that tip, but it obviously jumped across.
[0:44:03 – 0:44:04] Erik: Right, which was not…
[0:44:06 – 0:44:07] Erik: Not what he was expecting.
[0:44:07 – 0:44:09] Erik: So this is another quote directly from the book.
[0:44:09 – 0:44:16] Erik: The burning black spruce and small island of deciduous trees were sending a thin, steady column of smoke into the clear morning air.
[0:44:17 – 0:44:18] Erik: He must have wanted to take it back.
[0:44:18 – 0:44:23] Erik: He must have wanted to keep the pillar of smoke from sending its signal into the billowing sky.
[0:44:24 – 0:44:27] Erik: His exertion and seeing his campsite in flames surely sickened him.
[0:44:28 – 0:44:31] Erik: It wasn’t the kind of nausea that would cause his food to rise.
[0:44:31 – 0:44:32] Erik: It was heart sickness.”
[0:44:33 – 0:44:35] Erik: He had stupidly started a fire and then left it.
[0:44:36 – 0:44:44] Erik: He must have felt awful about setting to flame his beloved wilderness, where he had so often come and camped and enjoyed what Minnesota’s forests had to offer.
[0:44:45 – 0:44:47] Erik: Solitude in a wild place.
[0:44:48 – 0:44:53] Erik: If he had the time to think about it, he must have felt embarrassed, saddened, ashamed, and afraid.
[0:44:54 – 0:44:58] Erik: But right now, he was too damn tired to do anything but stand and watch.
[0:44:58 – 0:45:07] Erik: and hoped the fire would burn itself out, or that the visitors from down the shore were near enough to see the smoke and paddle back to Ham Lake to help him out.
[0:45:09 – 0:45:11] Erik: But within minutes, the unimaginable happened.
[0:45:11 – 0:45:18] Erik: The wind picked up the embers beside the narrow waterway and carried them across 25 feet of water.
[0:45:19 – 0:45:23] Erik: The opposite bank contained dry grass, shrubs, and small pines.
[0:45:23 – 0:45:27] Erik: The parched forest took only a couple of minutes to embrace the embers.
[0:45:28 – 0:45:30] Erik: Sucker them to the flame.
[0:45:30 – 0:45:37] Erik: and with an uptick in wind, build a solid, fiery foothold that began burning to the west slash northwest.
[0:45:38 – 0:45:50] Erik: Too late, long after the point at which the flames could have been curtailed, provided there had ever been that point, Steve, more tired than he could ever remember being, ended his trips for water.
[0:45:51 – 0:46:01] Erik: He stood almost certainly breathing heavily, sweating profusely in the cool morning, his forehead glistening, his body wet beneath his clothes and stared at the runaway fire.
[0:46:02 – 0:46:03] Erik: His stomach probably churned.
[0:46:03 – 0:46:06] Erik: He felt dizzy and he thought he was going to throw up.
[0:46:07 – 0:46:09] Erik: Not a goddamn thing he could do.
[0:46:10 – 0:46:12] Adam: Yeah, I’m sure that was a sick feeling.
[0:46:12 – 0:46:13] Erik: Yeah.
[0:46:15 – 0:46:25] Erik: With nothing else he could do, he began packing up and preparing for the paddle back out to Tuscarora, which is the directions the flames seem to be heading.
[0:46:25 – 0:46:26] Adam: There it is.
[0:46:28 – 0:46:44] Adam: Yeah, if you look at the little map I’ve got here that Eric ripped out of the book for me, yeah, like directly downwind from the point of ignition is Tuscarora Lodge and Round Lake, and it’s heading right for him.
[0:46:45 – 0:46:51] Erik: A little under a mile to the northwest sat Tuscarora Lodge under a tremendous stand of old-growth white pine.
[0:46:53 – 0:47:01] Erik: Andy was working on a propane leak with Jesse from the local gas company, and they were having a conversation about motorcycles.
[0:47:02 – 0:47:09] Erik: Quote, The thing I like best about them, Jesse said, is the way your surroundings are immediate.
[0:47:10 – 0:47:11] Erik: It’s not like driving a car.
[0:47:12 – 0:47:12] Erik: Andy agreed.
[0:47:13 – 0:47:19] Erik: When you’re riding a bike, you go along the road, you can feel the changes in temperature, the wind, and you can smell things.
[0:47:20 – 0:47:21] Erik: You can smell things like that campfire.
[0:47:22 – 0:47:24] Erik: Andy paused for a minute, sniffing the air.
[0:47:24 – 0:47:27] SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, he turned and said, That’s no campfire.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:32] Erik: That’s over by Ham Lake, and I’ve got to call that in.
[0:47:34 – 0:47:34] Erik: Hmm.
[0:47:36 – 0:47:37] Erik: So, the fire was first reported at 11.32 a.m.,
[0:47:40 – 0:47:46] Erik: And as Annie was making the phone call, Jesse made his way up a hill in the area.
[0:47:47 – 0:47:53] Erik: And because of his experience as a firefighter, Jesse was there helping with some propane things.
[0:47:55 – 0:48:03] Erik: But he was also a volunteer firefighter at the time, and he could tell what was coming straight for them was a running crown fire.
[0:48:03 – 0:48:05] Erik: Okay.
[0:48:05 – 0:48:12] Erik: They burn with high intensity, are fast and dangerous, and almost always uncontrollable.
[0:48:15 – 0:48:16] Adam: A crown fire.
[0:48:16 – 0:48:16] Adam: Yes.
[0:48:17 – 0:48:20] Erik: Basically running up, like burning the tops of the trees.
[0:48:21 – 0:48:22] Erik: Yeesh.
[0:48:22 – 0:48:22] Erik: Yeah.
[0:48:23 – 0:48:27] Erik: So Jesse returned from the hill to tell Andy and Sue that they had to go.
[0:48:27 – 0:48:27] Erik: And…
[0:48:31 – 0:48:33] Erik: That’s where we’re going to end this episode.
[0:48:33 – 0:48:34] Erik: The end.
[0:48:34 – 0:48:37] Adam: Actually, we’re not going to even go any farther.
[0:48:38 – 0:48:38] Erik: Yeah, at all.
[0:48:38 – 0:48:46] Erik: No, actually, this one is going to end there because it is the best place to end for a multi-part episode series on this fire.
[0:48:46 – 0:48:47] Adam: You’re going to cliffhanger us?
[0:48:47 – 0:48:48] Adam: Yes.
[0:48:48 – 0:48:49] Adam: I mean, the whole thing is a cliffhanger.
[0:48:50 – 0:48:50] Adam: We’re going to cut it off.
[0:48:50 – 0:48:51] Adam: You’ve got to stop somewhere.
[0:48:52 – 0:48:52] Adam: Yeah, otherwise…
[0:48:52 – 0:48:57] Adam: Literally, I’m looking at this map of the Ham Lake fire boundary, Eric, and we haven’t even touched…
[0:48:58 – 0:49:06] Adam: If the thing’s the size of Minneapolis, we haven’t even got out of the expo grounds, the fairgrounds here.
[0:49:07 – 0:49:08] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:49:09 – 0:49:10] Adam: I’m not familiar with the Twin Cities.
[0:49:10 – 0:49:11] Adam: We’re still in the Metrodome.
[0:49:12 – 0:49:13] Erik: Yeah, we’re still in the Metrodome.
[0:49:15 – 0:49:16] Adam: Now we’re stopping.
[0:49:16 – 0:49:17] Erik: Yes.
[0:49:17 – 0:49:20] Erik: I mean, if we don’t stop now, it’s like…
[0:49:20 – 0:49:21] Erik: Here’s your map back.
[0:49:21 – 0:49:29] Erik: If you don’t stop it now, the information coming, it’s an avalanche that there’s no other better place to stop.
[0:49:30 – 0:49:32] Erik: The best place to stop right now is before…
[0:49:33 – 0:49:34] Erik: I’m on the edge of my seat.
[0:49:34 – 0:49:39] Erik: Is before people start, like, the wheels of response start turning.
[0:49:39 – 0:49:40] Erik: Yeah.
[0:49:40 – 0:49:42] Erik: And it’s just nonstop from there.
[0:49:42 – 0:49:46] Erik: So it’s like, okay, this is clearly a wildfire.
[0:49:47 – 0:49:48] Erik: It’s clearly dangerous.
[0:49:48 – 0:49:49] Erik: It clearly seems like it’s coming right towards us.
[0:49:50 – 0:49:52] Erik: And the phone call has been made.
[0:49:53 – 0:49:57] Erik: And unless you want to start learning about all kinds of different planes.
[0:49:57 – 0:49:59] Adam: Oh, I can’t wait to learn about the planes.
[0:49:59 – 0:50:01] Adam: I hate airplanes.
[0:50:01 – 0:50:01] Adam: Yeah.
[0:50:02 – 0:50:04] Adam: Probably because my father was a pilot.
[0:50:04 – 0:50:07] Erik: Oh, one of those Marge Simpson deals.
[0:50:07 – 0:50:11] Adam: Also because they also fly over us all the time when we’re camping in the Boundary Waters.
[0:50:11 – 0:50:12] Erik: Well, yeah.
[0:50:12 – 0:50:13] Adam: It’s mostly that.
[0:50:14 – 0:50:16] Adam: Actually, I like going in airplanes.
[0:50:16 – 0:50:17] Erik: I like being in them, sure.
[0:50:18 – 0:50:20] Adam: You should have had us act out that last scene.
[0:50:20 – 0:50:23] Adam: You could have typed out the script.
[0:50:23 – 0:50:24] Adam: I could have played Jesse.
[0:50:24 – 0:50:25] Adam: That’s no campfire.
[0:50:25 – 0:50:26] Adam: That’s no campfire.
[0:50:26 – 0:50:27] Erik: That’s a crown fire.
[0:50:27 – 0:50:28] Erik: We got to go.
[0:50:28 – 0:50:32] Erik: Well, maybe I can keep that in mind going forward for next week.
[0:50:32 – 0:50:36] Adam: I’ll script us out some dramatic moments like that, especially if they’re going to be cliffhangers.
[0:50:36 – 0:50:37] Adam: I mean, gee whiz.
[0:50:37 – 0:50:37] Erik: Yeah.
[0:50:38 – 0:50:40] Erik: I like that you didn’t think I was actually ending it there.
[0:50:40 – 0:50:41] Adam: I did not.
[0:50:41 – 0:50:43] Adam: I mean, we’re well under an hour.
[0:50:43 – 0:50:44] Adam: We’ve got plenty of daylight left.