FORT KENT

Those whose business it is to monitor ice conditions on Maine’s lakes, rivers and ponds are saying this week there is no safe ice in the state.

“It really is the case there is no safe ice in Maine,” Doug Rafferty, spokesman with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said Wednesday. “Quite a few lakes and rivers have open water (and) it is just not advisable to be out on it right now.”

On Wednesday, a search for three snowmobilers missing on Rangeley Lake was suspended due to extreme cold and wind conditions.

On Monday, the body of Dawn Newell of Yarmouth was recovered after she went through the ice on Rangeley Lake while snowmobiling with her son.

With wind chill advisories active over much of Maine on Wednesday, the temperatures are sufficient to freeze Maine’s water bodies, but Rafferty stressed those extreme cold spells need to last at least two weeks with little or no wind before the ice can freeze to a safe thickness.

On Monday, officials with the Allagash Wilderness Waterway issued a release reporting hazardous ice conditions on the Allagash headwater lakes, including Big Eagle, Telos, Churchill and Chamberlain, where ice depth measured 2-5 inches with slushy conditions.

Rafferty advises testing ice before traveling too far on frozen bodies.

“If you are going to head out there, you had better wear something that will keep you afloat like a life jacket,” he said.

FOR MORE, see the Bangor Daily News at bangordailynews.com.