Firefighters Make Progress With Minn. Forest Fire

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO/AP) -- Fire crews are reporting their first real progress in containing a forest fire roaring across a northern Minnesota wilderness area.

The fire in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is now 8 percent contained.

Lisa Radosevich-Craig, a fire information officer, calls that news "pretty exciting." She says the contained area is on the northwest corner of the fire, near where the blaze was started by a lightning strike in mid-August.

Radosevich-Craig also says the size of the blaze has been lowered to about 146 square miles, due to better mapping as smoke clears.

She says there is some concern that southerly wind gusts Saturday could cause the fire to move further north.

(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)