NIMO develops long-term strategy for Little Knife Fire as additional crews arrive

Over the weekend, the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) took command of the Little Knife Fire.

The Little Knife Fire originated from two Canadian wildfires that merged near Ottertrack and Knife Lake near the U.S./Canada border. Last week, the fire crossed the border into the U.S. As of Wednesday, the latest estimated size of the fire on the U.S. side is 4,598 acres. Between the U.S. and Canada, the fire has burned over 80,000 acres.

For the next two weeks, the NIMO team will be stationed at the Cook County Community Center as it assists with coordinating emergency response efforts to the Little Knife Fire and other fires across northern Minnesota.

County officials signed a contract with NIMO on July 20 for use of the community center and the log cabin building for two weeks. County officials said in a special meeting this week that after the two weeks, the use of the facilities will be assessed on a day-by-day arrangement.

NIMO and Forest Service officials stationed at the Cook County Community Center | Photo by Kalli Hawkins

Over the past couple of days, NIMO crews have conducted aerial flights over the Little Knife Fire to gather data and more accurate mapping.

The NIMO team is tasked with identifying “values,” such as structures, cabins, infrastructure, and businesses in the surrounding vicinity of the fire that may be at risk. Then, develop a long-term strategic plan to mitigate risk and protect those values.

The areas of priority are east of the Little Knife Fire along the Gunflint Trail corridor, where the NIMO team has identified several structures, lodges, cabins, commercial buildings, communication towers, and associated infrastructure, said Jason Loomis, the NIMO Incident Commander for the Little Knife Fire during a Wednesday press conference.

Loomis said the past few days have brought moderate weather, which has “kept this fire in check and at bay,” allowing the NIMO team to develop a “firm plan.”

Jason Loomis, the NIMO Incident Commander for the Little Knife Fire | Photo by Kalli Hawkins

The scale of wildfires across northern Minnesota and the country has stretched wildland firefighting resources thin. More than a dozen wildfires are burning across northern Minnesota, while hundreds of others remain active nationwide. On July 18, the National Wildland Fire Preparedness Level was raised to Level 5, the highest level.

Level 5 means that national resources are heavily committed, and additional measures are taken to support geographic areas. Furthermore, active geographic areas must take emergency measures to sustain incident operations, according to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). Over 20,000 firefighters are committed across the country. Nearly 1,000 firefighters and personnel are committed to the wildfires in northern Minnesota that resulted from the July 6 lightning event, which sparked over a dozen of the wildfires in the state.

Crews with the MNICS July Lightning Event meet for a morning briefing | Photo via InciWeb

Loomis said, given the heightened wildfire season across the U.S. and in northern Minnesota, it’s “creating a little bit of a lag time to get us the resources that we need to insert into the wilderness to take a little bit more direct action.”

Additional firefighting resources and personnel arrived in Grand Marais over the past couple of days, with more crews expected on Wednesday and Thursday.

Loomis said crews, including a team of hotshots, will undergo training and Boundary Waters canoe instruction before being deployed. Once that is complete, Loomis said, “We will start inserting those folks into strategic areas of the fire.”

Map of Little Knife Fire | Map by U.S. Forest Service

NIMO plans to insert crews on the northeast corner and on the southern boundary of the Little Knife Fire. The Little Knife Fire has burned as far south as Ogishkemuncie Lake, approximately five miles from the western edge of Seagull Lake. The fire is approximately 15 miles from Gunflint Lake and 27 miles from the mid-trail area of the Gunflint Trail.

“All in all, things are going really good over here. We know that things are pretty calm now, but we also know that we’re early in the fire season,” said Loomis.

Loomis said the wildfire is burning very deep in the ground, and if the right conditions of hot, dry, windy weather return, then there will be some elevated fire behavior.

Aircraft are available to do water drops and extract the hotshot crews if conditions change.

Overall, Loomis said the NIMO team is, “Feeling pretty good about things where we’re at, but we still have a ways to go with respect to putting this thing into a place where we feel comfortable leaving it.”

One thing that will help alleviate increased fire behavior is rain.

“We really want to root for an inch of rain a week,” said Nate Perrine, the NIMO fire behavior analyst during a Monday public meeting at Gunflint Trail Fire Hall #1. “That’s what we want.”

Perrine said the amount of rain that the region receives will determine everything.

As NIMO develops a long-term strategy, one variable remains outside its control: how the fire will behave on the Canadian side of the border.

“We need to keep track of what’s going on up in Canada because it directly affects what’s going to be happening in the United States,” said Jen Rabuck, NIMO operations section chief said Monday.

Rabuck said the NIMO team is keeping a close eye on a section of the fire in Canada that has the potential to drop into the U.S. near Saganaga Lake. NIMO is using modeling tools to map out scenarios of where the fire may move and then develop contingency plans based on that modeling.

“So we’re going to be using a lot of the science behind this and the modeling and the history of how fire has moved down the landscape here to make sure we don’t put our folks out in front of this, but can do the good work that the Boundary Waters deserves to have done,” Rabuck said.

Jen Rabuck, NIMO operations section chief | Photo by Kalli Hawkins

While the Little Knife Fire is a priority on the U.S. side for local, state, and federal agencies, it’s a different story in Canada.

During the Monday public meeting at the Gunflint Trail Fire Hall #1, NIMO and the Forest Service acknowledged that the Little Knife Fire is a “low priority” right now for Canadian officials given the remoteness of the fire and that it doesn’t pose an imminent threat to public safety or private property, as compared to the other wildfires throughout Ontario.

NIMO and the Forest Service are in daily communication with interagency officials regarding the Little Knife Fire.

As NIMO inserts hotshot crews on the ground near the Little Knife Fire and conducts other operations within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Rabuck said that they are trying their best to adhere to the values of the wilderness area to minimize damages and the severity of the fire within their operational control.

“But I need to be real with you. This is science, and there’s some art,” Rabuck said. “Fire is a thing that needs different components to live and breathe, just like we do, and we need to make sure that we’re balancing the risk versus the reward of putting people in there to address the fire.”

Earlier this week, Forest Service officials told WTIP that the fire has a “mosaic-style burn.”

Rabuck said on Monday after conducting two helicopter flights over the Little Knife Fire that, “This is a very diverse fire environment. It doesn’t quite look that nice and tidy on the ground.”

The remoteness of the Little Knife Fire within the BWCAW is a challenge for firefighting response efforts, Forest Service officials said.

Most likely, the Little Knife Fire will burn for several months, and possibly until snow arrives.

“Weather is what started these fires. Lightning. Weather is what’s going to put these fires out,” said Drew Stroberg, acting supervisor for the Superior National Forest. “Most likely in the form of snow. So these will likely be with us for a while.”

Given the reduced fire behavior in recent days and the recent arrival of NIMO, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office lifted the ‘Ready’ evacuation orders on Wednesday for the Schroeder, Tofte, and Lutsen areas. The area had been placed in a ‘Ready’ designation following the Little Knife Fire crossing the U.S. border and making a sizeable run overnight to nearly 5,ooo acres.

The area towards the end of the Gunflint Trail remains in a ‘Set’ designation and the mid-trail area remains in a ‘Ready’ designation.

“There is some weather coming in over the weekend that we need to keep an eye on for fire activity,” said Cook County Sheriff Ben Hallberg. “We are continuing to evaluate the evacuation zones, with assistance from the USDA Forest Service and the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) for possible changes.”

Temperatures in the 70s and 80s are forecasted to return across the Arrowhead region starting Thursday. A couple rounds of storms are possible, according to the National Weather Service.

View the latest evacuation information for Cook County on the county’s Know Your Zone website here: https://cookcountymn.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2f0cb0740663455e9fe5c47b7fdb2379

With the Cook County Community Center closed to organizations and the general public for the next two weeks, several community events have been relocated to other locations throughout Grand Marais.

The following public events scheduled at the Community Center this week are being moved to other locations as noted:

Kalli Hawkins July 22, 2026