Sixty firefighters battled 90-degree heat and 35-mph wind gusts Monday and successfully doused a wildfire that jeopardized two historic structures within the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park.

Port Oneida fire

The wildfire began when electrical wires sparked the tops of evergreen trees east of the Port Oneida Schoolhouse on Port Oneida Road shortly after 2 p.m. Monday, Glen Arbor Fire Chief John Dodson said.

“Our first priority was to protect those buildings,” he said, referring to the schoolhouse and the Kelderhouse homestead directly across the road, adjacent to the Kelderhouse Cemetery.

Both are located within the Port Oneida Rural Historic District.

Firefighters had a number of factors working against them, including wind, location and the grueling heat.

“By the time we arrived, it had already burned two to three acres. The wind was pushing it around,” Dodson said.

The remote location, five miles from any designated water source, made it necessary for pumper trucks to travel 10 miles round trip to Glen Arbor for the much-needed resource. An estimated 20,000 to 22,000 gallons of water, much of which was drawn from the Crystal River, was used to extinguish the fire.

“The heat of the fire, plus the air temperature was just exhausting for the firefighters who also had on their turnout gear,” Dodson said.

Crews from Glen Arbor, Empire, Elmwood, Cedar, Leland, Lake Leelanau and Suttons Bay responded to the scene, along with wildfire fighters from the National Park Service, Department of Natural Resources and Red Cross for a total turnout of 60.

“It was incredible that we were able to get that number of people (to respond) in the middle of the day,” Dodson said.

The fire fueled by tinderbox dry conditions, began on the west side of Port Oneida Road and jumped to the other side of Kelderhouse Road and another road before stopping at the edge of a marsh.

“We couldn’t have gotten in there with our equipment,” Dodson said. “If it would have gotten in there, it couldn’t have been stopped. It would have gone all the way to the school.”

There were an estimated 140 students and 40 counselors and staff members at the nearby Leelanau Outdoor Center at the time of the fire.

“They were notified of the situation and they began voluntarily evacuating the campers,” Dodson said.

Girls from the camp were transported via bus to the beach at Glen Haven.

“We had planned on giving them some space at the township hall if needed,” the fire chief said. “The boys didn’t even have to leave. We had the fire out.”

By the time the wildfire was extinguished, it had burned an estimated 15 acres within the National Park. Most firefighters had left the scene at 5:15 p.m., leaving only firefighters from the Park Service. They remained on scene until 2 a.m. Tuesday.

Overall, Dodson was pleased with the response to the fire, which he said could have burned a much larger area given the bone-dry conditions.

“Our greatest risk in Glen Arbor is wildland fires,” he said. “Eighty percent of the township is ‘wild.’ If we can’t control a fire, it could quickly burn the town down.”

Assistant Park Superintendent Tom Ulrich was also pleased with the response.

“We don’t have any detailed plans for incidents such as these, but in any case like this we would respond with full suppression per our fire management plan,” he said. “Because Port Oneida is a ‘cultural landscape’, it focuses more on history rather than natural features.”

Damaged evergreens, some of which were slated for removal anyway, will not be replaced.

“They were identified for removal to preserve the farmscape,” Ulrich said.