Burning boat ignites several others on Lake Minnetonka

LAKE MINNETONKA, Minn. - Authorities say several boats on Lake Minnetonka caught on fire on Sunday.

It started when a boat out on LaFayette Bay started on fire. That boater was rescued but his boat drifted, touching another docked boat and starting it on fire, melting the dock next to it, and burning the canopy overhead.

"It was a lot of smoke. When I got out there was a lot of smoke. You can see the boat had floated into the very end of the dock and that boat was on fire, then the next thing we knew, the whole canopy of the dock started on fire," said Jack Weston, a neighbor.

The burning boat then drifted to the next dock and ignited a boat there that belonged to a firefighter.

The fires resulted in black plumes of smoke drifting over Shoreline Drive.

Mound firefighters were able to put out the fires shortly after arriving. Nobody was hurt, and investigators are still determining what started the initial fire.