Fire in the UP

FuzzButt

New member
Joined
Dec 5, 2003
Messages
694
Location
Waterford, Michigan
Anyone here concerned with the 18500 acre fire consuming Luce County in the UP? Looks like it is west of Newberry, East of McMillan and south of Pine Stump.
 

Yeah, I'm concerned! But the DNR is doing an awesome job in containing it. I have been printing fire maps for them every morning and asked this morning if I could post one, so here goes. I apologize for the bad quality, but I saved this to .jpg from .pdf and had to reduce the size to get it to fit on here. You can also look at the following link for info and pictures.

http://www.superiorsights.com/newberry_wildfire/NEWS.php

Actually, I just looked at this website, there is a fire map on there from last Wednesday if you scroll down a little in the link.
 

Attachments

  • sleeper_lake_fire.jpg
    sleeper_lake_fire.jpg
    149 KB · Views: 30
Last edited:
That is the kind of thing the news should be reporting. Most people don't know how big an area 18500 acres really is. It is 28.9sq miles. Just a bit bigger than the city of Ann Arbor (27.7sq miles).
 
Maybe they're not reporting it downstate, but the northern lower stations and TV6 in the U.P. are definately covering it well as is the Marquette Mining Journal. Luckily this blaze started in a very remote area of Luce County, and to date, only one small structure has been lost.
 
Ya WDIV Ch4 in Detroit had a blurb about it being nearly 19000 acres and is located in the UP. So now I am reading UP papers online like the 2 you have mentioned so far. The MMJ and the Superior Sites seem to be pretty extensive. I'm still looking for my trail map so I can figure out what runs thru there. Last time I was in Luce Co it was winter 2006 so it is not all that fresh.
 
Wow, I bear hunted in that area last year. My cousins have land within a mile or 2 of the current burn area that I left a treestand on a couple years ago. That will change things a bit. Fires aren't all bad except for killing wildlife and damaging property. They are natures' way of cleansing itself.
 
took the newspaper in lansing over a week to first report of it. i was keeping tabs on it via www.yooperyarns.com funny how close to 20000 acres can go up in smoke in michigan and barely makes state news but, i saw the other day on the weather channel 30 acres in california went up in a day and they were all over it nationally like a hobo on a ham sandwich. media, almost zero use for them. heck if paris hilton's dress was on fire, all forms of media would only broadcast that, and the outcome, and the horror, and the aftermath and coping with the aftermath. we live in an incredibly stupid time for mankind, whacked out priorities. ski
 
skidooboy said:
we live in an incredibly stupid time for mankind, whacked out priorities. ski

No argument there............ This is off topic but this is something that blew my mind on the news this morning. They said part of reason why MILK is rising in price is cause China and other countries are in such high demand for it. So why the hell do WE have to pay the price for a country that does nothing for this country. Oh I forgot most of them provide us with cheap labor so the rich can get richer and regular foke lose there jobs and homes. Like whats happening right here in Michigan.
 
FuzzButt said:
Ya WDIV Ch4 in Detroit had a blurb about it being nearly 19000 acres and is located in the UP. So now I am reading UP papers online like the 2 you have mentioned so far. The MMJ and the Superior Sites seem to be pretty extensive. I'm still looking for my trail map so I can figure out what runs thru there. Last time I was in Luce Co it was winter 2006 so it is not all that fresh.

There are no sanctioned trails that run thru the burn area. In fact there are no roads, or should I say were no roads in that area until now. There is a "new" road along the southern boundary that they pushed in with dozers and I guess is now like a backwoods highway. I'll have to check it out when everything calms down a little. The closest trail to that area would be #9 coming out of Newberry, but that would be to the West of the fire approximately 3 miles.
 
3 miles is not really that long a period of time in a fire that is that large.

On the News about milk story. I thought it was a bit odd that they said that demand for it in china is increasing the price. Really? Seems to me it would surely spoil about half way across the Pacific. Seriously milk has a short distance it is cost effective to transport. Sometimes I think the media just pulls facts out of their collective a$$'s just to fill time with stories someone there thinks we all need to know instead of the real news.

Rant off...
 
Ding said:
Wow, I bear hunted in that area last year. My cousins have land within a mile or 2 of the current burn area that I left a treestand on a couple years ago. That will change things a bit. Fires aren't all bad except for killing wildlife and damaging property. They are natures' way of cleansing itself.

If you give me a location, I could go pull it for you, granted that it is outside of the burn area....
 
Been following that fire from the start, Real close to my buddy's camp N.W. of Hulbert (Which Sucks). Now they say they have 2 more smaller fires out west in the U.P. & east of the main fire by Tourch Lake. Newberry news said the fire will not be totally contained untill mid september & out untill snowfall. No wonder it has burned so much ground after watching the timber companys practice of leaving the tree tops for gound clutter(fuel).
Natures way of cleansing itself just may make way for some awsome back country riding in that area.
Just hope all the firefighters stay safe!
 
YooperMike said:
If you give me a location, I could go pull it for you, granted that it is outside of the burn area....
Chicken . . . j/k

I have heard from my cousin that it is safe. It is a couple miles west of Four Mile Corner, and about a mile north of H-37 (407). My cousins have a 440 acre parcel there that borders forest land.

Where I bear hunted last year was near Sleeper Lake itself. I think we went in off H-37 (407) near where the folks in trailers used to feed the bears in the summer (Can't think of his name right now). We were in several miles to the east, some by truck and some by foot.
 
Bushman said:
Been following that fire from the start, Real close to my buddy's camp N.W. of Hulbert (Which Sucks). Now they say they have 2 more smaller fires out west in the U.P. & east of the main fire by Tourch Lake. Newberry news said the fire will not be totally contained untill mid september & out untill snowfall. No wonder it has burned so much ground after watching the timber companys practice of leaving the tree tops for gound clutter(fuel).
Natures way of cleansing itself just may make way for some awsome back country riding in that area.
Just hope all the firefighters stay safe!
The Sleeper Lake fire is quite a ways from Hulbert, so your buddy's camp should be safe.
 
Ding said:
The Sleeper Lake fire is quite a ways from Hulbert, so your buddy's camp should be safe.
Anybody got any input on the new fire near Hulbert?
 
Nothing new. I have a co-worker that lives in Hulbert. I will ask him and get back to you later.

I talked to him, and he said it was a small fire and as far as he knows, it is contained and out or almost out.
 
Last edited:
Ding said:
The Sleeper Lake fire is quite a ways from Hulbert, so your buddy's camp should be safe.

His camp is up from East-West Rd. on the TQ River & was told the fire was 2-3 miles from the river?
Somehow I missed the last news report but they had some live feed from where the fire had burned & was showing over 1' of ash on the ground, I did not see it but have talked to 3 people whom all seen the same report...... Now that was one heck of a fire when it came through :(
 
The Hulbert fire was small, around 20 acres. It is contained, or out by now. I know of no other fires that approached the Tahquamenon River. If anybody wants some awesome photos of helicopters on the Sleeper Lake fire (chinooks, blackhawks, and helo-torches) I can e-mail them. They are too big to post on here (3-7 meg photos). Good news is we are getting rain right now and are scheduled to get more tomorrow. Hopefully that will settle things down a bit.
 


Back
Top