Sheriff says 17 airlifted from Boundary Waters amid wildfires

St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said 17 people had been airlifted out of the Boundary Waters since wildfires began, turning a remote backcountry fire into a full-scale rescue operation. Ramsay also said the forest had 17 active wildfires, including four inside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and that nine new fires were reported.

The evacuations showed how fast conditions can tighten in canoe country, where access is limited and aircraft can become the fastest way to reach people before fire blocks travel out. The U.S. Forest Service closed the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and all BWCA entry points were shut as the wildfire situation worsened.

The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office said a “GO!” evacuation would display across the BWCAW in Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties, and the county activated its Ready, Set, Go evacuation framework. St. Louis County also declared both a local state of emergency and a local disaster amid the fires, a move that gives county leaders more room to coordinate the response and manage costs tied to the emergency.

The fire emergency spread beyond the wilderness boundary. Superior National Forest had 16 fires burning in the Arrowhead region, and more than a dozen wildfires were burning in northern Minnesota as entry points closed. In the Gunflint Trail area, the wildfire threat pushed the county’s response from planning into active evacuation, with campers, outfitters and families facing a landscape where access can change by the hour.

For anyone headed into the Boundary Waters now, the immediate reality is that the normal trip plan has changed. Entry points are closed, evacuation notices can be issued across Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties, and remote travel in the BWCAW now carries the same kind of urgency usually associated with a highway evacuation, not a summer recreation trip.