Campfire ban in effect in Quetico due to increased risk of wildfires
Campfires in Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario are currently banned due to dry conditions and the risk for wildfires.
Quetico sits just across the border from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It can be accessed from lakes at the Gunflint Trail to the Ely side of the wilderness.
There is currently not a campfire ban in place for the BWCA.
That being the case, dry conditions across the Boundary Waters region and an increased risk of wildfires led to the campfire ban in Quetico. The notice first went into effect June 1.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an air-quality alert for most of Minnesota earlier this week, including Cook County, due to wildfires burning north of the border in parts of Canada. Already this year there have been seven such alerts in Minnesota, most of them due to wildfire smoke and ozone.
Canada is on track for its worst-ever year of wildfire destruction as warm and dry conditions are forecast to persist through to the end of the summer, officials said earlier this week.
Fires are burning in nearly every Canadian province at this time, and federal government officials said their modeling shows increased wildfire risk in most of Canada through August.