MN wildfires: Crews report progress in containing flames

Minnesota have scorched roughly 70,000 acres, and in the latest update, fire officials say there has been some progress made on containment over the past couple of days. So this has led to the ST Louis County Sheriff's Office reducing some evacuation levels. Plus, the Forest Service announcing some day use permits for select Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wellness entry points will open to the public starting on Monday. So that's a little bit of good news. Overnight permits have been canceled through Wednesday. Fox nine. So young. Kim has a closer look at the firefight on the ground and why crews say it's still a very long road ahead. We're here in ST Louis County, and let me show you. Firefighters have been hard at work clearing brush, creating defensible space and focusing on structure protection. Originally, the hand crews came in and did some fuel mitigation, creating a 30 ft. Defendable space. More than 1000 firefighters are battling the wildfires burning in northern Minnesota. We caught up with a Duluth fire crew Thursday, protecting property north of Ely. After that was completed, we came through and figured out where sprinklers were needed. Uh, we've raised one up above the building over near Echo Trail. The Southern Area Incident Management team showed us how crews are prepping the road in case to intercept a fire before it reaches those cabins nearby. You can see this this stump here. Some of this stuff was already dead. Uh, that was cut and chipped. Their goal is to reduce fuels. It makes it a lot more manageable when the fire, if it were approaching on the surface, it gets to this area that's been treated, and there's just not a lot left here to burn. Fire officials say the recent rain helped, but there's concern about the warm up they're and some of the stuff we flew over yesterday. We didn't see a lot of smoke here and there in different places. But if you took the same flight today, we're probably gonna see more smoke, more smokes coming up because the weather is we're in a drying pattern right now. And authorities say they're constantly assessing evacuation statuses and closure levels. So stay alert to official communications reporting in ST Louis County. So young Kim Fox nine.