July 6, 2026
Size: 3 acres
Status: 100% contained
Cause: Lightning
Personnel: 12
Location: Long Lake, south of Pine Lake and north of Grand Marais — Gunflint Ranger District, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
A small wildfire detected in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness last week is now fully contained, the Superior National Forest said in its final update on the fire July 5.
A routine fire patrol flight over the Gunflint Ranger District first spotted the Long 2 Fire on the afternoon of July 2. Investigators traced its origin to lightning from thunderstorms that had rolled through earlier in the week.
Six firefighters reached the remote site by Beaver floatplane on July 3, and four more joined them the next morning. The fire stayed low and slow-moving, smoldering through needle litter and brush with flames of a foot or two and the occasional tree candling. Working from the lakeshore, crews set up a pump, ran hose around the fire’s edge, and stripped fuels from the perimeter — then, on July 4, used a small burnout to carry the fire’s edge down to Stump Lake, letting the shoreline itself serve as a ready-made control line, a light-touch tactic typical of wilderness fire management.
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Mop-up is now underway. Heat lingering deep in the organic soil means the fire likely won’t be declared out for several days to a week, the Forest Service says — sooner if rain arrives. Water-dropping aircraft remain on call.
No lakes, campsites, or portages have been closed, but officials ask paddlers to give the fire area a wide berth while crews finish their work. Drones are barred near the fire — as they are everywhere in federally designated wilderness — because they force firefighting aircraft to the ground.
The Long 2 Fire is the latest in a string of lightning-caused fires in the wilderness this season, following three fires sparked by early-June storms.