County Officials Looking For Person Who Shot Firefighting Plane

In the middle of what has been a very busy couple of days across Northern Minnesota for firefighting crews trying to contain a huge outbreak of wildfires, someone reportedly fired a gun at a firefighting aircraft in St. Louis County during these firefighting efforts.

Dozens of fires across Northern Minnesota that have popped up over the last couple of days have created an incredible effort by firefighting crews to try to protect people's homes and property and try to keep these fires from spreading.

In the midst of all of that, several aerial firefighting aircraft have been flying around Northern Minnesota the last couple of days. Airplanes and helicopters dipping water out of lakes and bombing the fires with that water have been seen around the busiest of these fire zones the last couple of days.

One of those fires was in Portage Township, which is about 15 miles north Orr, Minnesota.

During firefighting efforts for this fire, two single-engine air tractor fire suppression aircraft were dispatched to help fight the fire from the Minnesota DNR.

One of those aircraft, when it returned to the Hibbing Airport, was found to have what appears to be a bullet hole in it.

The St. Louis County Sheriff says that the plane was able to land safely and the pilot was not injured, but they believe the plane was struck by a bullet while collecting water from Kjostad Lake around 7 pm on Friday evening (May 15).

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St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay, in a social media post, said the following about the incident:

We are going to work hard to find the individual or individuals responsible for this and bring about justice in this case. We are grateful the pilot was not injured or killed. The last thing these tremendous pilots should have to be concerned about is being shot at.

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The Sheriff's Office is asking anyone who may have information about the incident to call 911. They say you can remain anonymous if you wish to do so. If you have information, you should use the reference case number 26066433 when you call 911 with your information.

The Largest Minnesota Wildfires In Modern History

While Minnesota has experienced even larger, more devastating fires like the 350,00-acre Hinckley Fire in 1884 of the 250,000-acre Cloquet-Moose Lake Fire in 1918, fires have thankfully been relatively smaller in more modern times.

Even though these more modern fires have been smaller, largely due to better firefighting capabilities, many have still been devastating and destructive. Here's a look at Minnesota's largest wildfires since 2007 based on information from the Minnesota Incident Command System.

Gallery Credit: Nick Cooper