Search and Rescue Receives Multiple False Alerts From Satellite-Enabled iPhones in BWCA Wilderness

SEAGULL LAKE – The text sent to Cook County’s 911 dis­patch center said a person in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was literally in flames.

“Message about someone be­ing on fire,” the dispatch report from Aug. 27 reads.

After deploying emergency responders, including members of the Gunflint Trail Volun­teer Fire Department, into the BWCA Wilderness to find the distressed party, nobody who was in harm’s way could be lo­cated. There was no fire. There were no humans ablaze. In fact, there was no sign of anyone needing help with anything. All the responders found were people paddling canoes on this popular lake at the end of the Gunflint Trail. As the situation unfolded, dispatch contacted Minnesota resident Annie Heckman. Annie’s husband, Jesse, owns the iPhone that sent the alert.

“We have received a couple of these (texts) and consequently have paged out emergency services and SAR,” Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen told Paddle and Portage. “During the incident it (was) de­termined that an iPhone had been triggered to report an emergency through the emergency SOS fea­ture.”

The 911 texts Eliasen describes came from an Apple iPhone through the company’s new satel­lite technology, which enables users out of cellphone range to use pass­ing satellites to send text messag­es. Eliasen said the alerts can also be enabled by rapidly pressing the “side button” on an iPhone or hav­ing the phone’s crash detection fea­ture turned on.

Annie was contacted by law en­forcement shortly after the false message was sent from Jesse’s iP­hone 16 in the BWCA. Annie said she spent the next hour in a state of deep fear and worry and cried for most of that time. Jesse, meanwhile, was unaware the message had been sent and was neither injured nor in need of assistance from search and rescue. He and his paddling group were unaware a search and rescue unit were looking for them. Annie said the situation “nearly gave her a heart attack.”

Annie said she is aware of the sit­uation from 2024 where four Min­nesotans went over Curtain Falls, and that during the hour when she didn’t know if Jesse was safe, it was hard not knowing anything about her husband’s situation and if he was indeed in danger. Annie said Apple needs to figure out what the problem is with these false alerts so that others don’t have to experience the fear of unnecessary worry in addition to wasted resources from false alerts being sent out from iP­hones.

This summer, 911 dispatch cen­ters across the country near remote wilderness settings have received some version of these alarming texts seeking help. From high-elevation peaks in the Rocky Mountains to lakes in the BWCA Wilderness, all of the alerts where people are re­portedly on fire were unfounded.

Cook County is the only local county that confirmed these texts are coming from iPhones via the SOS feature. Lake County dispatch told Paddle and Portage no false alerts have come in via iPhone sat­ellite communication this summer. In St. Louis County, which is the size of New Jersey and includes a massive swath of the western side of the BWCA Wilderness, there’s been a history of false alerts from Apple products in recent years, according to Jason Matthias, su­pervisor of St. Louis County dis­patch. Beyond the messages from satellite connections, Matthias said false crash alerts on Apple devices trigger the automatic crash detec­tion feature, which can misinterpret events like a phone falling from someone’s pocket to the ground, an abrupt stop in an automobile, or even shoveling snow, as a severe collision. Matthias said several years ago Duluth had a wet, heavy snowfall and subse­quently people shoveling it set off numerous false crash alerts to emergency responders.

The satellite connection and crash alerts are available on iP­hone 14 and later models and newer Apple watches. When these false activations are sent in, search and rescue and other similar personnel need to re­spond, which diverts resources from actual emergencies, au­thorities in all three counties who P&P spoke with for this ar­ticle all agreed.

Emails to Apple’s media rela­tions department from P&P were not immediately returned this week following the incident on Seagull Lake, and another similar incident on Brule Lake in the BWCA Wil­derness in late June. In both inci­dents, the text alert said “Someone is on fire.”

Jim Morrison is the chief of the Gunflint Trail Volunteer Fire De­partment. He, along with four others in two motorized boats, re­sponded to the report of a person on fire on Seagull Lake in the BWCA Wilderness. The incident happened around noon Wednesday, Aug. 27. While speaking with P&P later that day, Morrison said crews responded to a campsite near the portage from Seagull Lake to Alpine Lake in the BWCA Wilderness. After speaking with numerous groups of paddlers, nobody reported they or anyone they’d encountered was in distress.

“It was like we were pursuing a phantom,” Morrison said of the false alert from the paddler’s iP­hone.