ULEN, Minn. (AP) — Firefighters from several departments are battling a large brush fire near Ulen in northwestern Minnesota.
Clay County Sheriff Bill Bergquist says the fire destroyed one structure Sunday, but there have been no injuries. He says one farmstead was threatened, but firefighters were able to save it, and no other structures appear to be threatened at this point.
By early Sunday evening, he said, the fire was mostly burning in some woods. He says trucks aren’t able to get in there, so firefighters are doing everything by hand or with ATVs. He says the hot weather is also making the work hard.
The sheriff says authorities heard the destroyed building was an abandoned farmstead but they couldn’t immediately confirm that.
Bergquist says the cause of the fire hasn’t been determined.
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BRAINERD, Minn. (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration says a pilot was killed and a passenger was injured when a small plane crashed into Upper Whitefish Lake near Brainerd.
It happened just before 10 a.m. Sunday. FAA spokesman Roland Herwig says the Skystar Kitfox 4 fixed-wing, single-engine plane was submerged about 75 yards offshore.
The Crow Wing County sheriff’s office says the pilot, a 55-year-old Crosslake man, died at the scene. The passenger, a 61-year-old Crosslake man, was taken to a Crosby hospital with serious injuries. The sheriff’s office was withholding their names while family members were notified.
Crow Wing County Sergeant Chad Paulson says the cause of crash remains unknown. The FAA will investigate.
FAA records say the plane was amateur-built in 2008 and was registered to a 55-year-old Crosslake man.
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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Thousands of new Minnesota high school graduates wouldn’t have received their diplomas this year without waivers from the state.
That’s because they repeatedly failed Minnesota’s mathematics graduation test. In some districts, as many as one-third of seniors wouldn’t have graduated without a waiver, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Sunday (http://bit.ly/ORCdJohttp://bit.ly/ORCdJo ).
The Minnesota Department of Education doesn’t track how many waivers are issued each year, which makes it hard to tell how many students didn’t meet the math standard.
The waivers, which the state implemented in 2009, require students who fail the first time to take the test two more times and then receive remedial help. About 57 percent of students pass on the first try, but no one knows how many of those who fail succeed when they retake it.
The state doesn’t require students who keep failing the test to meet any alternative benchmarks other than retesting and tutoring.
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DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Warm weather and recent flooding are being blamed for a fish kill on Big Sandy Lake, about 60 miles west of Duluth.
Mike Bruesewitz, Aitkin area fisheries manager for the Department of Natural Resources, tells Minnesota Public Radio (http://bit.ly/MQWejN) that heavy rains last month washed a lot of decayed organic material into the lake. When it reached warm water, microbes in the material consumed the dissolved oxygen that fish need to survive.
Bruesewitz says dead northern pike, perch and crappies have been found in Big Sandy. But he says warm-water species like bass and panfish should be OK. He also says fish populations are resilient and usually rebound without much intervention
High temperatures have also been blamed for killing thousands of fish in several southern Minnesota lakes in recent weeks.
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