Oct 26, 2026 · 9 min · 8 segments
A new study is giving us a first look at the economic impact of the wildfires this summer in the Boundary Waters. Researchers at the University of Minnesota Duluth looked at Ely and Grand Marais, and…
Linda JurekGuest
Nina MoiniHostMichael VasichekGuest
You know, sometimes a massive event will happen and it's like three, five years later, you know, people are studying what's happening.
It's nice to hear that you all were able to kind of dive in on this right away to try to assess what was going on.
Michael, can you tell us a little bit about the study and sort of how you were able to calculate the economic loss?
Yeah, so I was really excited to be able to get this data out as quick as we were able to.
Using mobile cell phone data, we were able to track how many visitors come to the regions of Ely and Grand Marais.
And comparing that to previous summers, we were able to look at the loss in visitors in July while the Boundary Waters were closed.
And then we have some surveys that we've conducted in the past that estimate visitor spending.
Like when they're a tourist in an area, they'll spend money on lodging and restaurants and recreation.
And so using the estimated loss in visitors and how much they would have spent, we can then model the total economic impact from this event.
You know, sometimes a massive event will happen and it's like three, five years later, you know, people are studying what's happening.
It's nice to hear that you all were able to kind of dive in on this right away to try to assess what was going on.
Michael, can you tell us a little bit about the study and sort of how you were able to calculate the economic loss?
Yeah, so I was really excited to be able to get this data out as quick as we were able to.
Using mobile cell phone data, we were able to track how many visitors come to the regions of Ely and Grand Marais.
And comparing that to previous summers, we were able to look at the loss in visitors in July while the Boundary Waters were closed.
And then we have some surveys that we've conducted in the past that estimate visitor spending.
Like when they're a tourist in an area, they'll spend money on lodging and restaurants and recreation.
And so using the estimated loss in visitors and how much they would have spent, we can then model the total economic impact from this event.
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