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MARQUETTE COUNTY -- The Department of Natural Resources says scattered showers may have slightly aided in extinguishing a wildfire in northwest Marquette County, but there's still a significant blaze inside containment zones.

Saturday night it was thirty hours and counting that DNR crews had manned the forest fire near the Dead River Basin.  Friday night they received help from volunteer fire departments in Champion and Ishpeming Township.  Two members of the DNR stayed with the fire throughout Friday night.

The DNR firefighters and the equipment they're using is from all over the U.P.  The conditions they face are hazardous.

"It's too unpredictable in this fuel type, it's hot and smoking," says Fire Supervisor Keith Murphy.  "It's chaos when trying to get stuff rolling, but we work through it and do a good job."

No homes are currently threatened.  The cause is under investigation, but the DNR believes it may have been caused by lighting earlier in the month of July, uncovered after the smoke was carried by strong winds Friday.

With a 15-person crew Saturday, they made significant progress, securing the fire to 100 percent containment Saturday afternoon.  They've got a long way to go--it covers 60 acres, and the blaze is still burning in the interior of the containment zone.

To get the fire out, it's going to take water and a lot of it.  That's a difficult solution during this drought-like period for the area.

They don't have an estimate about when they'll have the fire extinguished, but encourage the public to stay out of the area for safety reasons.  They say there will be some significant damage, but recovery will be posible.

"We lost a little bit of timber, but for the most part, the landscape will be OK when we get some trees back.  It'll look good again in a few years," Murphy says.

The DNR says rain is what is truly needed to extinguish this fire.  They're also concerned other small fires could pop up in the next couple of days due to the dry conditions.