Lake County evacuation orders expand as Boundary Waters fire spreads rapidly
A GO alert covered North Fall Lake-2A after 17 people were airlifted from the Boundary Waters and about 300 residents evacuated near Ely.
Lake County expanded its highest-level evacuation alert around Fall Lake and Cedar Lake as the Camp Fire pushed past containment lines and forced a larger response north of Ely and Winton. The GO alert covered the area north of Fall and Cedar lakes, where officials said conditions had deteriorated fast enough to demand immediate evacuation rather than wait-and-see monitoring.
The fire crossed containment lines just after 3 p.m. Monday and was burning about eight miles northeast of the Cloquet Line near Ely. Lake County later said the fire had grown to about 265 acres, and one county update put the number of evacuated residents at about 300, including people between Fernberg Court and part of Fall Lake.
The danger escalated on the water as crews air rescued 17 people from the Boundary Waters area, including children pulled from the Fall Lake area during the emergency. St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said the fire was moving rapidly, underscoring how quickly a wilderness blaze can cut off access in a region where roads are limited and weather can change fire behavior in minutes.
Lake County expanded the GO evacuation zone into the area between Fall and Cedar lakes and identified the amended zone as North Fall Lake-2A. The order included adjoining roads, driveways and trails from Lake One and Snowbank Lake to the Garden Lake Bridge. The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said deputies would go door to door in the evacuation area, while the U.S. Forest Service said the Fernberg Road Corridor was under immediate evacuation beginning at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
Displaced residents were directed to the Babbitt Municipal Center at 71 South Drive, where the municipal gym was being used as an evacuation point. Lake County said the site would remain open until 9 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, 2026, and reopen Wednesday, July 15, at 8 a.m. The county also said there were no public shelters available at the time, adding to the pressure on Babbitt and nearby communities to absorb evacuees.
Babbitt also opened its local arena for evacuated pets and large animals, a step local leaders said matched the speed of the volunteer response. Additional GO notifications were set to appear across Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness lands in Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties to align with the federal closure, keeping the warning spread across the wider fire zone as crews worked through another volatile day near Ely.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
