Little Knife Fire (Minnesota)
True color
Fire (SWIR)
Infrared / SWIR (right): sees through smoke.
🟢 green = vegetation
🟤 red/brown = burned
🟠 orange = active fire
Imagery: Sentinel-2 (Copernicus). Drag to compare smoke vs. infrared.
Heat detections: NASA FIRMS (last 48h).
Quick facts
- Location
- 45 Miles NE from Grand Marais, MN
- Personnel
- 2
- Complexity
- Type 4 Incident
- Fuel
- Timber (Litter and Understory)
- Behavior
- Minimal, Creeping, Smoldering
- Jurisdiction
- USFS · Federal land
Burning across federal timber land in Lake County, Minnesota, the Little Knife Fire has spent 51 days quietly consuming the landscape near Grand Marais. Located 45 miles northeast of Grand Marais, the 4,815-acre incident has sustained an average daily growth of approximately 94 acres per day since its start on July 15, 2026. Current fire behavior on the Type 4 incident is characterized as minimal, creeping, and smoldering within timber litter and understory fuels.
Management of the USFS federal fire has involved two personnel under a Type 4 Incident Command structure, accumulating a total suppression cost of $2,862,504.61. Steady containment efforts have successfully brought the Little Knife Fire to 100 percent containment.
This incident unfolds during the region's typical fire season, which runs from June to October. On a broader scale, 3,177,542 hectares have burned across the country so far in 2026, marking a figure that is 42% below the two-decade average.
In context
This wildfire has been burning in Minnesota for 53 days. So far it has affected roughly 4,815 acres — about 19 km². The perimeter is 100% contained.
In the Northern Hemisphere, wildfire activity usually peaks during the warm, dry months — roughly May through October.
The bigger picture in United States
Across United States, roughly 3,178,795 hectares have burned so far in 2026 — 42% below the two-decade average. Data from Copernicus GWIS.
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