The third-largest wildfire in Michigan’s recorded history began with a lightning strike north of Newberry in the Upper Peninsula on Aug. 2. After burning over 18,000 acres, the fire is now safely under control with no loss of life or major injuries incurred. The Nature Conservancy’s Michigan Fire Manager, Jack McGowan-Stinski, supervised fire-trained staff who went to help the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources and its many partners with this extraordinary effort. Jack gives us his reflections in this new series, Postcards From the Field.

By Jack McGowan-Stinski
Michigan Fire Manager, The Nature Conservancy

Week 1: After the Lightning Strikes

Thursday, August 9-Wednesday, August 15, 2007: Newberry, Michigan

The Sleeper Lake Wildfire, started by a lightning strike on Thursday, reached 15,400 acres by Tuesday, an area 8 miles long and 3.5 miles wide. The fire has currently burned over approximately 2,000 acres of The Nature Conservancy’s property. Containment is minimal at 10%, but a lot of progress was made yesterday and this morning with more secure fire breaks. Getting into this fire is difficult due to the large areas of peatland interspersed with hardwood and coniferous knobs - a patchwork of natural communities with very few roads.

To date, the Conservancy has provided three fire-qualified staff on-site, made our High Band radios available, and provided the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources (MDNR) with mapping shapefiles. I will be back on-site soon and we will be rotating fire-qualified staff from The Nature Conservancy into the effort if Incident Command wants to use us as a resource. Our staff have been allowed as liaisons, forward observers, as part of an engine crew, and as a hand crew with sawyers. We would like to continue to offer fire-qualified staff and equipment as containment and mop-up progresses; internal areas will need to be monitored for activity in the weeks ahead.

The area is very, very dry; the organic soils of peatlands are burning deep, and fire is spreading slowly into hardwoods that usually will not burn this time of year. Coniferous stands are occasionally torching out. This fire is now a week old, and it is hard to determine when it may be contained. Winds have switched 180 degrees on almost a daily basis. There is a very real risk that this fire could make a run again and jump current containment lines. Surrounding fuel outside the fire is a similar matrix of peatland, hardwoods, and mixed conifers. Even once this fire is contained it will likely continue to burn for quite a while into the organic soils; it is very possible that it will be a Michigan winter that will be needed to extinguish the fire burning below ground.
 
The MDNR Incident Command is coordinating suppression activities extremely well. Local support is very positive. There are now well over 200 personnel working on this fire.