Significant Wildfire Erupts in Polk County, Minnesota

POLK COUNTY, MN (trfnews.i234.me) Firefighters from several communities are on the scene of a wildfire east of Crookston on this Monday afternoon.
the old carlson here with some breaking news out of polk county at uh 1 36 p.m on a monday got a large wildfire coin this is about uh seven miles east of crookston minnesota the national wildlife refuge here fire burning out there we have fire departments from several communities being called in mentor fertile crookston uh red lake falls latest radio traffic is that they’re going to try to stop it here up along highway 2 by back burning i’m gonna listen in here we’ll see what kind of shot we can get to stay out of the way again a large wildfire here in polk county we’re about seven miles west east of uh crookston 63 degrees we got the wind gusts up to 36 miles per hour see uh smoke rolling across highway 2 up here red flag warning out today went into effect not too long ago and here we are on the fire um also hearing reports of fires up in the beltrami island state forest uh south of war road and maybe a smaller one over in the itasca area and maybe another one uh east of here up along highway 32 so dry extreme dry conditions high winds extreme fire danger [Music] i just heard them calling in more law enforcement so i don’t know if it’s going to be a problem visibility wise up here on highway 2 or what’s going on should be able to get a better look at it here uh over the ridge we’re coming up on the shores of the ancient lake agassi here out of the river valley [Music] it sounded like uh a lot of this fire may have been on the glacial glacial ridge national wildlife refuge that’s up here to the right [Music] if you’re familiar with this area off to the left is the landfill [Music] [Music] oh and wildfire here along highway 2 it sounded like crews we’re going to try to back burn from here to get it stopped so it doesn’t cross into uh [Music] [Music] yeah again they’re talking about starting to uh back burn from highway 2 here so it gets the fire stopped before it crosses the highway here now if you can see it against the smoke the darker part of the smoke looks like hundreds of geese circling it [Music] get it [Music] see some black smoke there so i don’t know if that’s some type of structure that’s on fire it’s usually kind of indicative of that [Music] there’s a fire crews lined up here out along the highway come again you broke up right away be sure all those power poles are attended to you as you light that off coming east 10 more [Music] okay you see fire crews lined up along the road here they’re going to try to uh start back burning from highway 2. looks uh state patrol just went over here [Music] big flames out here to the uh south of highway too [Music] it looks like the fire is right up along the road here fire crews are starting to uh get placed along the road here to apparently he’s got it today he’s got a torch let’s try to start back burning [Music] again we had fire crews called in from uh fertile mentor red lake falls and the crooks fire crew right here they started back burning along the highway here see what happens to now as of uh 2 pm highway 2 out here has been closed in both directions you can see why there is no visibility crews from several towns battling a wildfire out here we’re on the scene we’ll keep you updated check back for more updates on this developing story i’m Neil Berg reporting for trfnews.i234.me