Mill fire was a big loss

John Luomala, a reader in Thomson Township, recently brought in some physical black-and-white snapshots of a fire at a Cloquet lumberyard. Luomala figured he had taken the pictures in the late 1950s or early 1960s and was sure some readers would remember the huge pulpwood fire.

Luomala was a forester for Northwest Paper Co. at the time. His photos show the efforts to douse the fire, including this one with the fedora-wearing president of the company, Harry T. Kendall Jr., looking back at Luomala.

Readers won't have to scratch their heads for too long. A look at newspaper archives shows that the fire began Tuesday, April 2, 1963, with a possible lightning strike on the massive 100,000-cord stack of pulpwood logs on plant grounds.

More than 200 workers and 400 firefighters battled the smoldering fire for most of a week. Northwest reported that it lost more than 11,000 cords of wood at a value nearing $250,000, which would be a loss of more than $2.4 million in today's dollars.

Firefighters came from 11 units across the region, including the Duluth Air Force base. Water was pumped from city mains and the St. Louis River at what today is the Sappi mill. Fog and wind hampered the efforts. Carlton County Road 45 was closed due to visibility issues.

The woodpile wasn't near any buildings, but the heat of the fire curled railroad tracks. Ever the optimists, company officials said there was no stoppage of work at the mill during the whole episode.

Later that year, Northwest Paper agreed to merge with Potlatch Forests Inc., the company that eventually sold the mill to Sappi in 2002.