BEMIDJI, Minn. — From what Beltrami County Sheriff Ernie Beitel can tell us, the fire that burned 75 to 80 acres Tuesday night in Eckles Township was a sight to behold.
"The fire was reported to be on both sides of the road and it spread to the Southside," Sheriff Beitel said. "We did have a north wind that was pushing things southward, the area just south of this is a housing development area, fairly new, that is still expanding - a lot of homes in this area. As this fire quickly moved, the DNR issued a voluntary evacuation of those homes."
Given the dry conditions that we've been having, Sheriff Beitel says the fire just ate up the dry pine and debris.
The Minnesota DNR has identified the Northwest corner of our state as an area of "very high" fire danger, just one step under "extreme."
The Eckles Fire, quickly grew into a massive team effort.
"We had a lot of air assets yesterday," Sheriff Beitel said. "We had six fixed-winged craft, along with three helicopters fighting this fire. It was through their work, along with boots on the ground, the DNR, and the firefighters, is what really contained the fires and saved all the homes up there. We didn't lose one home which was very exciting to find out that that didn't happen."
And if the fire was a sight to behold, the fire fighting aircraft were actually the characters that stole the show.
Sheriff Beitel says crowds gathered to watch the DNR planes work. Which led to a Facebook post - asking people and boaters to get out of the way on Lake Bemidji.
"Sheriff Beitel grabbed one of our boats and hit the water once we saw boaters were not staying out of the way of planes grabbing water. After rounding up the boaters and clearing the way, he grabbed a video from a safe spot," the post read.
"These air assets, they use area lakes, and they need a body of water big enough for their aircraft to come down and scoop water from the lake and then be able to take off again," Beitel said. "They don't ever stop. They drop in very quickly and they're on a body of water for a good period of time before they take off again. Boats hindering that, we had that happen last night on Lake Bemidji."
This after an emergency notification to clear the area went out and all the resorts in the area were notified.
The sheriff says it's just important to be a bit more self aware during situations like this
"It just comes down to that personal awareness of what's happening, and again we all wanna do our own thing," he said. "Everyone came together for this thing, not only state assets, local fire fighters, volunteer firefighters, that came out. A lot of people wanted to see what was going on, and they kept trying to drive to the area, and a lot of people did the same on the lake."
Sheriff Beitel said it worked out well in the end.
"We just went out there and gently reminded them they needed to leave the area, go to another part of the lake," he said. "And situational awareness for themselves to stay out of that area."