The economic impact of the July wildfires in the BWCA now has some numbers attached to it.
The U.S. Forest Service decided to close the BWCA early on and cancelled permits for over a month for some entry points.
The overall impact to the Ely area was estimated at $4.4 million with another $4.6 million for Grand Marais.
The University of Minnesota Duluth Bureau of Business and Economic Research conducted an analysis estimating the economic impact of lost visitors to Ely and Grand Marais in July 2026. Their analysis applied aggregate phone data to establish a two-year average baseline from 2024 and 2025 against which to compare visitorship.
According to the analysis, “the communities of Ely and Grand Marais saw roughly 47,000 fewer visitors in July 2026 compared with the previous two years.”
Lacey Squier of Boundary Waters Connect discussed the numbers at a meeting of the Ely Area Lodging Tax Joint Powers Board on Tuesday.
Squier said the Ely area showed a drop of 22,000 visitor days.
“If I went to Grand Marais for three days that would be three visitor days,” said Squier. “I was struck by that was such a huge number and I didn’t realize our little town was hosting 200,000 people days in July.”
Squier said a separate report is looking at how 157 business owners responded to survey questions on the economic impact of the fires.
UMN Extension is in the final stages of compiling the results of the wildfire economic impact survey conducted in collaboration with Ely Community Response.
Each report approaches the question of economic impact differently – one using aggregate phone data to estimate lost visitorship (UMD BBER), and the other using qualitative data from 157 impacted businesses (UMN Extension).
