Gunflint Burning: Fire in the Boundary Waters

by Cary J. Griffith

Overview

On May 5, 2007, two days into his twenty-seventh trip to the Boundary Waters, Stephen Posniak found a perfect spot on Ham Lake and set about making a campfire. Over the next two weeks, the fire he set would consume 75,000 acres of forest and 144 build

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781517903428
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	05/28/2019
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	168,708
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Cary J. Griffith is the author of four books, including Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods; Opening Goliath, winner of the 2010 Minnesota Book Award; Wolves, winner of a Midwest Book Award; and Savage Minnesota, which was published serially in the Star Tribune. He lives in Rosemount, Minnesota. 

Table of Contents

Contents
Map of the Ham Lake Fire
Abbreviations
Prologue: Bob Monehan’s Place
Before the Storm
1. Stephen Posniak
2. The Weather Begins to Turn
3. The Burning of Windigo Lodge
Fire Day One
4. Preparation
5. Volunteers and Water
6. Posniak Strikes the Match
7. First Responders
8. A Growing Firefight
9. Witnesses
10. An Interrupted Journey
11. Front Lines
12. Questions
13. Spotting Out of Control
Fire Day Two
14. An Alarming Glow
15. The Evacuation Moves Forward and a Burnout Goes Awry
16. Managing Chaos
17. The Long Afternoon
18. Fire at the Tip of the Bay
19. Last Stand
Fire Day Three
20. Saving the Seagull Guard Station
21. In the Heart of the Heart of the Flames
22. Shock
23. The First Burn Out
The Big Burn Out
24. Backfire
25. Fire down the Line
26. Ham Lake Fire, Days 6-11
Aftermath
27. The Investigation
28. The Indictment
Epilogue
Sources and Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

Skillfully wielding his narrative talent, Cary J. Griffith leads readers into the blistering heart of the 2007 Ham Lake fire, one of the most destructive in Minnesota history.
—Peter M. Leschak, author of Ghosts of the Fireground

Cary J. Griffith invites his readers beneath the smoke and flames of a running crown wildfire to show us the massive coordinated response to one camper’s carelessness. His precise research and his clearheaded storytelling serve admirably to unde

Gunflint Burning brings the adrenaline, the falling ash, the smell of smoke, and the jarring scream of a crown fire to its detailed narrative of a wildfire in one of America’s best-loved wilderness areas. Cary J. Griffith carries the re

In Gunflint Burning, Cary J. Griffith has penned the consummate story of one of the great wildfire disasters in the history of Minnesota. Expertly reported and cleverly written, this account of the Ham Lake fire of 2007 reads like a thriller

From the Publisher