Clarifications:
OK, first of all that picture in the last post, the one with the Beaver in it? That's not a canoe under the plane, it's the firefighting tank. My bad. A canoe would be somewhat longer and more symmetrical.
Any guesses as to how contained the fire is as of this morning? No, not 90%. No, not 95%... That's right, 92%! They're very precise this Minnesota fire management team. It seems like they've been removing fire crews at a rapid rate since the end of last week although the crew is still more than a couple hundred. I think they're pretty comfortable with the situation overall.
Betsy is still very confused about the canoes and how they're used to fight the fire. The picture of the boat jetting water from last week didn't clarify anything apparently. Here's what I know:
Some crews were flown in but most paddled, even the ones that flew used canoes to get around once they were in the wilderness.
Everyone gets a canoe orientation.
They did have hoses and portable pumps which sucked lake water for fighting fires.
I'm pretty sure they did not have any sort of canoe mounted water cannon, as cool as that would be. I think the picture of the boat with the water jet was probably on Seagull lake which is accessible by road.
The canoes were just for transportation.
Mostly I think they used shovels and pick-axes to break up and spread out the fuel although they seemed pretty excited about those fire-line explosives, I think there were special crews for that.