Brown: Minnesota wildfires remind that danger smolders in these North Woods

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What would you pack if you had an hour to evacuate your home? How about 30 minutes? Or maybe 15?

My wife and I found ourselves discussing these questions last week as wildfires claimed homes, cabins and barns within an hour’s drive of our family home in northern Minnesota.

Scrapbooks, of course. Computers. Oh, and we can’t forget the family recipe book.

We did not mention the beds we sleep in, the pictures of the kids hanging on the wall or the furniture we scrimped to buy. Facing wildfire, you can’t save everything, or even most things. You can only hope to save the lives of the people you love.

Though the distant fires were moving away from our house, the conditions that allowed the flames to grow were present in our backyard, too.

Whipping winds. Brown, crinkly underbrush. Dead fallen trees. Humidity so low that pots watered in the morning were bone dry by noontime.

All it would take is a spark for our whole lives to burn.

It’s impossible to hear the word “wildfire” and not think of recent disasters in Los Angeles, Hawaii and Canada. These fires killed people and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. Everyone who buys home insurance helps pay these bills.

Though the Jenkins Creek, Camp House and Munger Shaw fires were small in comparison, they showed that fire doesn’t negotiate; it takes.

Wildfire advances like an invading army from some faraway hellscape, banners of smoke and flame flapping in the wind. You might slow it or redirect it, but only God and nature can stop it.

The threat of wildfire is not new. It’s an ever-present part of life in the woods, especially in spring and fall when combustible fuels line the forest floor. In its natural state, fire plays a vital role in regenerating the forest. Certain tree species, like jack pines, require fire to reproduce. That’s why many western states let fires burn unless they directly threaten people and property.

That won’t work in Minnesota. We have too many homes and cabins, towns and highways. And yet our state is heavily forested, with trees covering about a third of our land.

After catastrophic forest fires killed hundreds and destroyed whole towns in 1918, Minnesota committed to an aggressive fire suppression strategy that puts out fires whenever and wherever they start. More than a century later, this remains the mission of the Minnesota Incident Command System and its affiliated firefighting agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources.

The strategy was thoroughly tested this past week. Officials engaged all the state’s fire suppression resources. Ultimately, Gov. Tim Walz deployed the Minnesota National Guard to assist. After days of fighting through hot winds and dry brush, the fires were arrested and finally beat back. We owe much to the men and women who did this backbreaking work.

Nevertheless, some people now find themselves without homes. Others bear the trauma of fleeing the oncoming wall of fire.

And we are by no means out of the woods. Fire season is growing longer, with earlier springs and later snowfalls that are clearly documented over the past several decades. Climate change is a real factor in the growth of forest fires. And trust me, those fires don’t care about anyone’s political beliefs or skepticism.

In addition, forest pests and invasive species are causing large stands of trees to die prematurely, leaving them as fuel for future fires. This was identified as having contributed to the fires in Minnesota last week.

And humans — God love us all — remain flawed creatures. We ride machines with red-hot exhaust manifolds along dry trails. Impatient with restrictions, we light brush piles and campfires when we shouldn’t. We toss our cigarette butts out the windows of our moving cars. We all have a role to play in preventing wildfire. #SmokeyTellsTheTruth.

Knowing that ever-drier conditions, changing ecological factors and human activity will continue to stoke fire risks, we must prepare for the next big fire — one that will be far worse than what we just saw.

This week, Iron Range towns like Hoyt Lakes, Aurora and Babbitt were on alert for evacuation orders. Had the fires started just a few miles north, these towns could have been lost. We were lucky.

The seats in our family minivan fold down easily, which will save us time. We might get a few more keepsakes, and enough clothes to wear until the insurance check comes, if it comes. For people like us who live in the forest, this is real talk. And it will be real for everyone in Minnesota if we aren’t better prepared for more sustained fire operations in our near future.