Monday was a busy day for State Senator Terri Bonoff. The Senate was in session and her family was trying to figure out what was next for their home away from home ? a cabin in the fire-threatened region at the edge of the Boundry Waters.
"We knew the cabin was at risk. I had a feeling it was going to go," Terri Bonoff said.
The Bonoff cabin was the first structure consumed by the Ham Lake Fire.
The family got a call Sunday night from the Cook County Sheriff.
"I knew exactly what he was going to say," Barry Bonoff . "He said your house is gone.
"It's so terrible. You just go nuts not being there, yet I knew there was nothing I could do about it."
In 1999 high winds toppled as many as a million trees across the BWCA. The so called Blow Down didn't spare the Bonoff's cabin on Seagull Lake. Eleven trees fell onto the home, but the building remained undamaged.
Fallen trees from the Blow Down likely fueled the fire that consumed the cabin.
"I have felt like ever since that Blow Down, that it was inevitable," Terri Bonoff said.
"I never pictured me without the cabin, I figured I was going to have my ashes dropped over there someday," Barry Bonoff said, wondering what is next.
"If all the land is gone ? which I have a hunch it is == I don't know what I want to do about rebuilding, it's the land that you're there for," Barry said.
(Copyright 2007 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
