As the Jenkins Creek, Camp House and Munger Shaw fires blazed through the weekend, firefighters reported success on all three fronts.

In particular, the Minnesota Interagency Command Team A noted Saturday evening that the Munger Shaw fire is 75% contained. According to a news release from Eastern Area Incident Management Team issued on Sunday, the Camp House Fire was listed as 31% contained.

Nathan Thom, assistant wildlife manager with the Brainerd office of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources rides in the passenger seat while Evan Duchow, wildlife technician with the Aitkin office of the Minnesota DNR droves a Marsh Master amphibious track vehicle onto Munger Shaw Road in Cotton while helping with the Munger Shaw fire on Friday, May 16, 2025. (Dan Williamson / Duluth Media Group)

The Jenkins Creek Fire was still zero percent contained at last report. Firefighting efforts and rainy weather have combined to prevent all the fires from spreading over the weekend. However, crews are preparing for the return of drier and gustier conditions in the coming week.

A community meeting has been scheduled for Monday at 6 p.m. at the auditorium at Mesabi East High School in Aurora. Representatives for the Eastern Area Incident Management Team, the U.S. Forest Service, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department will give status updates on the fires and related closures and evacuations. A link will also be provided for online viewing.

A vehicle and building destroyed by the Camp House Fire along County Hwy 44, as seen Thursday, May 15, 2025. (Wyatt Buckner / Duluth Media Group)

St. Louis County has rescinded the evacuation order for the Munger Shaw Fire only.

On Friday, during a Facebook video update, St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said he spent some time at the checkpoint where homeowners returned to check on their homes and properties.

“It was very sad to meet and talk with those who had lost their houses,” Ramsay said.

Several elected officials visited the area Friday to survey the damage caused by the fires so far, including Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, state Sen. Grant Hauschild and state Rep. Natalie Zeleznikar.

“The fires across northern Minnesota have forced families to evacuate and caused severe damage,” Walz said. “My thoughts are with those who have had to leave everything behind, and I extend my deepest gratitude to the wildland firefighters, first responders, volunteers, and emergency management officials who are working around the clock to contain these fires. The state is ready and committed to do everything in our power to respond to and suppress these fires and others across the state, and help impacted communities rebuild.”

Laura Kimmes, of Cotton, stops to offer thanks to Dave Snetsinger, of Naytahwaush, Minnesota, and all of the crew members battling the Munger Shaw Fire on Friday, May 16, 2025. Kimes was returning to her home nearby for the first time since being evacuated. (Dan Williamson / Duluth Media Group)

Weather forecast

A low-pressure system will pass by to the south with high pressure in Canada, leading to a prolonged period of east to northeast winds, the National Weather Service in Duluth reported Sunday. “Near-critical fire weather conditions will be possible,” the weather service said, with minimum relative humidity values from between 15% and 25%. Winds on Monday are expected to be 5-15 mph, gusting to up to 32 mph in places.

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For residents impacted in St. Louis County, United Way of Northeastern Minnesota is working to establish a wildfire recovery fund. Immediate assistance is offered through its Comforts of Home program, which replaces lost items with referrals from agencies like the Red Cross and St. Louis County. All proceeds go to impacted community members.

Donate online at unitedwaynemn.org/firehelp.

For residents impacted in Lake County, Head of the Lakes United Way is sending donations to impacted community members.

Donate online at hlunitedway.harnessgiving.org/campaigns/18236.

NEW YORK (AP) — Many crew members on the Mexican navy tall ship that suffered a deadly collision with the Brooklyn Bridge have flown home from New York, officials said Monday.

Seven officers and 172 cadets who were aboard the Cuauhtemoc training vessel arrived early Monday at the port of Veracruz, where Mexico’s naval school is, the Mexican navy said in a post on X. Two cadets remained in New York getting medical treatment. They were in stable condition, the navy said.

Two members of the Cuauhtemoc’s crew suffered fatal injuries Saturday when the ship’s tall masts struck the Brooklyn Bridge’s main span after the ship departed a Manhattan dock where it had been open to visitors for several days.

Footage of the collision shot by horrified onlookers show the ship moving swiftly backwards and then grinding beneath the 142-year-old bridge as its topmasts snapped off. Multiple cadets in the ship’s crew were aloft, standing on the ship’s yards when the collision happened. Several were left dangling by safety harnesses as the masts partially collapsed.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board was investigating the cause of the crash, which police said was possibly related to a mechanical problem. The ship was moving quickly under motor power in the opposite of its intended direction when the collision happened. A tugboat that had helped the ship get out of its berth could be seen on video trying to get ahead of the vessel as it headed toward the bridge but couldn’t overtake it in time.

The safety board planned to hold its first media briefing later Monday. The investigation is likely to take months. The crippled Cuauhtemoc remained at a dock in Manhattan.

The Brooklyn Bridge escaped major damage but at least 19 of the ship’s 277 sailors needed medical treatment, according to officials. Among those killed was América Yamilet Sánchez, a 20-year-old sailor who had been studying engineering at the Mexican naval academy. Her family has said she died after falling from one of the Cuauhtemoc’s masts.

The Cuauhtemoc arrived in New York on May 13 as part of a global goodwill tour. The vessel, which sailed for the first time in 1982, had been docked and welcoming visitors in recent days at the tourist-heavy South Street Seaport. It was next bound for Iceland.

The ship’s main mast has a height of 160 feet (50 meters), far too high for the span of the Brooklyn Bridge at any tide.

Associated Press reporter Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this story.

By DAVID RISING

BANGKOK (AP) — Three people were killed and several others injured when they were struck by lightning while visiting Cambodia’s famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

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They had been seeking shelter around the main temple of the UNESCO site when the lightning struck late Friday afternoon.

Video posted on social media showed two ambulances arriving in the aftermath and onlookers and site officials carrying out some injured people and helping others out on foot. Other images showed multiple people being treated in the hospital.

The day after the incident, Cambodia’s Minister of Tourism Hout Hak issued a statement telling people to take down online posts about it, saying the spreading of “negative information” could harm the country’s tourism sector.

Authorities have released no information about the incident, but an official on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed to The Associated Press that three people — all Cambodian — were killed in the lightning strike.

The Cambodian Red Cross also posted an update saying it had delivered care packages to the families of two of the victims, a 34-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman. The Red Cross refused to comment further by phone.

A spokesman for the Angkor Wat site did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a regional health official.

Cambodia’s government under Prime Minister Hun Manet keeps a tight grip on information, and has been accused by rights groups of using the court system to prosecute critics and political opponents.

Hun Manet in 2023 succeeded his father, Hun Sen, who was widely criticized for the suppression of freedom of speech during his nearly four decades of autocratic rule.

Angkor Wat is Cambodia’s best-known tourist attraction, attracting some 2.5 million visitors annually, and is even featured on the country’s flag.

UNESCO calls the site, which sprawls across some 155 square miles and contains the ruins of Khmer Empire capitals from the 9th to the 15th centuries, one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.

Cambodia has been actively developing the area to attract more visitors, including opening a new $1.1 billion Chinese-funded airport in nearby Siem Reap.

Its move to relocate some 10,000 families squatting in the Angkor Wat area to a new settlement has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups, however, and UNESCO itself has expressed concern.

Cambodian authorities have said the families were being voluntarily relocated, but Amnesty International and others have questioned how voluntary the relocations actually have been.

By ANNIKA HAMMERSCHLAG

SOCOTRA, Yemen (AP) — On a windswept plateau high above the Arabian Sea, Sena Keybani cradles a sapling that barely reaches her ankle. The young plant, protected by a makeshift fence of wood and wire, is a kind of dragon’s blood tree — a species found only on the Yemeni island of Socotra that is now struggling to survive intensifying threats from climate change.

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“Seeing the trees die, it’s like losing one of your babies,” said Keybani, whose family runs a nursery dedicated to preserving the species.

Known for their mushroom-shaped canopies and the blood-red sap that courses through their wood, the trees once stood in great numbers. But increasingly severe cyclones, grazing by invasive goats, and persistent turmoil in Yemen — which is one of the world’s poorest countries and beset by a decade-long civil war — have pushed the species, and the unique ecosystem it supports, toward collapse.

Often compared to the Galapagos Islands, Socotra floats in splendid isolation some 150 miles off the Horn of Africa. Its biological riches — including 825 plant species, of which more than a third exist nowhere else on Earth — have earned it UNESCO World Heritage status. Among them are bottle trees, whose swollen trunks jut from rock like sculptures, and frankincense, their gnarled limbs twisting skywards.

But it’s the dragon’s blood tree that has long captured imaginations, its otherworldly form seeming to belong more to the pages of Dr. Seuss than to any terrestrial forest. The island receives about 5,000 tourists annually, many drawn by the surreal sight of the dragon’s blood forests.

Visitors are required to hire local guides and stay in campsites run by Socotran families to ensure tourist dollars are distributed locally. If the trees were to disappear, the industry that sustains many islanders could vanish with them.

“With the income we receive from tourism, we live better than those on the mainland,” said Mubarak Kopi, Socotra’s head of tourism.

But the tree is more than a botanical curiosity: It’s a pillar of Socotra’s ecosystem. The umbrella-like canopies capture fog and rain, which they channel into the soil below, allowing neighboring plants to thrive in the arid climate.

“When you lose the trees, you lose everything — the soil, the water, the entire ecosystem,” said Kay Van Damme, a Belgian conservation biologist who has worked on Socotra since 1999.

Without intervention, scientists like Van Damme warn these trees could disappear within a few centuries — and with them many other species.

“We’ve succeeded, as humans, to destroy huge amounts of nature on most of the world’s islands,” he said. “Socotra is a place where we can actually really do something. But if we don’t, this one is on us.”

Increasingly intense cyclones uproot trees

Across the rugged expanse of Socotra’s Firmihin plateau, the largest remaining dragon’s blood forest unfolds against the backdrop of jagged mountains. Thousands of wide canopies balance atop slender trunks. Socotra starlings dart among the dense crowns while Egyptian vultures bank against the relentless gusts. Below, goats weave through the rocky undergrowth.

The frequency of severe cyclones has increased dramatically across the Arabian Sea in recent decades, according to a 2017 study in the journal Nature Climate Change, and Socotra’s dragon’s blood trees are paying the price.

Toppled dragon’s blood trees are strewn on the ground on the Yemeni island of Socotra on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Annika Hammerschlag)

In 2015, a devastating one-two punch of cyclones — unprecedented in their intensity — tore across the island. Centuries-old specimens, some over 500 years old, which had weathered countless previous storms, were uprooted by the thousands. The destruction continued in 2018 with yet another cyclone.

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, so too will the intensity of the storms, warned Hiroyuki Murakami, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the study’s lead author. “Climate models all over the world robustly project more favorable conditions for tropical cyclones.”

Invasive goats endanger young trees

But storms aren’t the only threat. Unlike pine or oak trees, which grow 25 to 35 inches per year, dragon’s blood trees creep along at just about 1 inch annually. By the time they reach maturity, many have already succumbed to an insidious danger: goats.

An invasive species on Socotra, free-roaming goats devour saplings before they have a chance to grow. Outside of hard-to-reach cliffs, the only place young dragon’s blood trees can survive is within protected nurseries.

“The majority of forests that have been surveyed are what we call over-mature — there are no young trees, there are no seedlings,” said Alan Forrest, a biodiversity scientist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s Centre for Middle Eastern Plants. “So you’ve got old trees coming down and dying, and there’s not a lot of regeneration going on.”

Keybani’s family’s nursery is one of several critical enclosures that keep out goats and allow saplings to grow undisturbed.

“Within those nurseries and enclosures, the reproduction and age structure of the vegetation is much better,” Forrest said. “And therefore, it will be more resilient to climate change.”

Conflict threatens conservation

But such conservation efforts are complicated by Yemen’s stalemated civil war. As the Saudi Arabia-backed, internationally recognized government battles Houthi rebels — a Shiite group backed by Iran — the conflict has spilled beyond the country’s borders. Houthi attacks on Israel and commercial shipping in the Red Sea have drawn retaliation from Israeli and Western forces, further destabilizing the region.

“The Yemeni government has 99 problems right now,” said Abdulrahman Al-Eryani, an advisor with Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based risk consulting firm. “Policymakers are focused on stabilizing the country and ensuring essential services like electricity and water remain functional. Addressing climate issues would be a luxury.”

With little national support, conservation efforts are left largely up to Socotrans. But local resources are scarce, said Sami Mubarak, an ecotourism guide on the island.

Mubarak gestures toward the Keybani family nursery’s slanting fence posts, strung together with flimsy wire. The enclosures only last a few years before the wind and rain break them down. Funding for sturdier nurseries with cement fence posts would go a long way, he said.

“Right now, there are only a few small environmental projects — it’s not enough,” he said. “We need the local authority and national government of Yemen to make conservation a priority.”

Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram @ahammergram.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment