Officials Saturday were still fighting two small fires by air and ground in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, as well as a 500-acre blaze burning just across the Canadian border. Canadian crews are attacking a "very active" fire known as Fort Frances No. 59, the Duluth News Tribune reports.

The U.S. Forest Service has changed its policy about small fires burning in wilderness areas. The agency has decided it's worth the expense and effort of snuffing out those fires to keep them from growing into blazes like the one that scorched much of the Boundary Waters last year. The new policy will keep firefighters busy for the next couple of months, responding to fires they would have let burn under the old system.

Fire crews and a wind switch combined to beat back a raging forest 216-acre fire Thursday that burned to the edge of popular tourist town Ely. Some nervous residents were briefly evacuated, but no injuries were reported and officials say no occupied homes were lost.

The wildfires that have been plaguing the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness area in northeastern Minnesota are contained, controlled or out, the U.S. Forest Service reported Saturday. However, with the forecast of dry weather in the next few days, campfire restrictions remain in the area and some lake and trail closures are still in effect.

The massive wildfire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness burned about 95,000 acres. Hundreds of firefighters from the Midwest and Rocky Mountains fought the blaze at a cost of more than $20 million. And now, with winter approaching, we're getting a look at the extent of the devastation the fire left behind.

A Tuesday night storm that passed through the Superior National Forest was a lose-lose for firefighters: it generated very little rain but plenty of lightning. A fire that's been burning since Sunday is a little bigger, but is now about 40 percent contained. Meanwhile, five smaller fires were started by lightning strikes.

Six forest rangers had to use portable emergency fire shelters after they were unable to outrun the Boundary Waters wildfire. The rangers were evacuating campers when the fast moving fire overcame their position. They jumped into a lake and took cover under the shelters they carry with them.

U-S Forestry Officials vastly underestimated the beginnings of a wildfire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The Star Tribune reports internal memos show an initial wait-and-see approach set the stage for the blaze to explode into the largest fire the state has seen in almost a hundred years.