An estimated 75 to 100 ice fisherman were stranded on an ice floe on a Beltrami County lake Friday evening, as rescuers worked to get them back to shore.
The Beltrami County Sheriff’s office said early Friday evening that several local emergency responders were on their way to Upper Red Lake, where the ice floe detached from the main ice.
In a news release, Sheriff’s Office spokesman Christopher Muller said the open water was “too large to bridge,” and that officials were “working on an operation to get people back to shore.”
Muller said officials had not received reports of anyone in the water.
The Sheriff’s Office said it would provide more details on the rescue operation Friday evening, or by midday Saturday.
The rescue comes one day after two men on an ATV went through the ice about 1 ½ miles north of the southern shore of Upper Red Lake. The men were uninjured, but they struggled to get out of the water and to safety. They alerted authorities but said they were stranded and couldn’t get back to their resort, according to a news release from the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office.
Poor ice conditions around the state have contributed to two recent fatalities on other Minnesota lakes in recent weeks.