Abby Nadeau
Staff Writer

At 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 4, Fire Chief Gary Sigfrinius got a call from the incident commander in charge of the Ham Lake fire on the Gunflint Trail.

“He wanted 15 fire fighter engines from the Twin Cities in the area by 8 p.m.,” Sigfrinius said.

By midnight four Forest Lake firefighters and an engine were ready to fight one of the worst fires in recent Minnesota history.

Joe Strunk, Matt Haseman, Dan Mike and Mike Kuehn are the four volunteers who spent the weekend installing sprinkling systems for forest and structure protection.

Sigfrinius said the men used agriculture sprinklers and propane powered pumps to take water out of the surrounding lakes to wet the woods around structures as well as the structures themselves.

The propane pumps allow the sprinklers to run for a longer time period. He said that when an evacuation is ordered the sprinklers will keep operating even when the structure or land owner is no longer on the property.

Even though the men were scheduled to stay in the area for one to two weeks, early Tuesday morning, Sigfrinius received a phone call that the men would be returning by the evening.

He said the fire danger had been significantly reduced by a dozer barrier that will keep the fire threat down.

Sprinkling ban

City Administrator Chip Robinson asked the council to approve a sprinkling ban much like the ban that was enacted last summer.

Robinson said that the city saved 750,000 gallons of water a day through the sprinkling ban last summer.

“I think it is a good thing for us to do, it shows that we have conservation on our minds,” Robinson said.

The new sprinkling hours are from 4 to 7 a.m. in the morning and from 8 to 11 p.m. at night.

The city web site states that “lawn sprinkling shall be limited to allow only customers with house numbers ending in an odd number to sprinkle on the odd numbered calendar days and to allow only customers with house numbers ending in an even number to sprinkle on the even numbered calendar days.”

On the days the homeowner can water their lawn, they are restricted to the new watering hours. The motion was approved 5-0.

The council voted and denied a resolution that would determine if the Wal-Mart 48,000 expansion was exempt from an Environmental Assessment Worksheet.

The council voted 2 to 2 with Mayor Stev Stegner abstaining from the vote.

Tom Casey, an attorney from the Citizens for Responsible Growth in Forest Lake, filed several petitions asking the Environmental Quality Board to ask the city of Forest Lake to provide an Environmental Assessment Worksheet.

His final petition was accepted, which means the city council now has to make the decision on whether or not they think an EAW is needed.

The EQB did not mandate the city to have an EAW and the council has the right to not file an EAW.

The EAW would evaluate many environmental factors the expansion would affect if it were completed.

City Engineer Phil Gravel questioned what new information they would receive from the EAW, stating the city has already completed many of the same tests the EAW would do.

Robinson said the topic will be brought back to the council at their next meeting on Monday, May 21.

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