Heavy smoke from wildfires blankets the US Midwest and Northeast, prompting evacuations

WASHINGTON, July 16, (AP): Thousands of visitors were told to evacuate a remote Minnesota wilderness area accessible only by boat as wildfires send dangerously heavy smoke over the US Midwest and Northeast this week. More than 100 wildfires are burning in Canada, where a train crew in northern Ontario filmed themselves surrounded by flames before being safely evacuated. Winds are carrying the smoke southeast.

Warnings about unhealthy air conditions Wednesday extended from Minnesota through Toronto and into New York. Unusually hot summer temperatures were expected, too. The best advice is to stay indoors to avoid both the smoke and the extreme heat, said Tyler Hasenstein, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chanhassen, Minnesota. "Those two things coinciding with each other is not good from a health perspective,” he said.

In far northeastern Minnesota, rangers were trying to warn people that the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was closed Tuesday because about 17 fires caused by lightning more than a week ago were spreading through the vast wilderness accessible primarily by canoe. Rangers estimated anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 people were inside the 1.1-million-acre (445,000-hectare) wilderness, which is almost the size of Delaware, Superior National Forest spokesperson Joy VanDrie said.

"It’s an arduous job,” VanDrie said of rangers and campers having to canoe for hours or even carry their boats over land to evacuate. No injuries or deaths have been reported. Rangers were going through every lake and waterway and officials estimated they had about 90% of the people out Wednesday. Campers rescued this week said skies quickly darkened from smoke and they could feel the heat as they paddled or were taken by boat to safety.

Jan Bailey was camping with her husband, daughter, son-in-law, two grandchildren and three dogs when they noticed wispy smoke on the horizon. Two hours later, they could see a raging firestorm. A paddleboarder with a satellite phone fled to their campsite and they called forestry rangers who sent a boat to rescue them and others. "We had fire on both sides of us at that time,” Bailey told Minnesota Public Radio. "So we’re just weaving between the lakes. It’s a little smoky. Campsites are going up."