Fire officials have declared a 175-acre wildfire that threatened the popular northeastern Minnesota tourist town of Ely to be completely contained. The containment effort got help from about 1.5 inches of rain that fell this weekend.

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.

Visitors to the popular tourist town of Ely will notice it does not look the same. Lush green forest was devastated in a blaze this week just south of the Boundary Waters gateway, and will take years to recover. The last mile of Highway 1 just south of town will lose much of the distinctive forest that has lined the road. The fire sparked Thursday was well under control late Friday.

Overnight rain helped firefighters in Ely make significant progress toward extinguishing a wildfire that earlier had threatened the city. The Duluth News Tribune also said authorities opened Minnesota Highway 1 Sunday morning for the first time since the blaze began Thursday afternoon.

KARE 11 reports the fire was considered 80 percent contained as of Tuesday morning. The blaze has burned more than 1600 acres near Nimrod. Investigators are sill looking into what caused the wildfire.

Wildlife officials shot and killed a collared yearling black bear Thursday after it went into an Ely-area garage. There were children in the area, according to reports. The bear had been collared in July by Lynn Rogers of the Wildlife Research Institute in Ely, but it wasn’t one of the well-known bears tracked by Rogers and other researchers or followed by the public on Internet webcams.