When put to the torch by SS troops, the Finnish town of Rovaniemi burned merrily for some hours. An ammunition train on a sideline at the town's railway station eventually caught fire and exploded with spectacular results-among them, knocking the carefully-placed demolition charges off the Kemijoki Bridge five kilometers outside town. Corps headquarters ordered SS Nord Division to send a security detail to cover an engineer detachment from 7th Mountain Division desparately trying to replace the explosives.

SS veterans have tried to claim for over 60 years that they did not burn Rovaniemi, clinging to the improbable tale that Finnish commandos from the 5th Battalion snuck into the town and lit the fires to discredit the SS. They did manage to hold off the approaching Finns long enough for the engineers to blow up the bridge, and the SS escaped with relatively few losses. Not until after the Finns discovered the destruction of Rovaniemi did the Lapland War begin in earnest.