Burke fire chars 5,400 acres

Thursday, July 05, 2007

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

LINVLLE -- While national media attention has been focused on large wildfires in Utah and California, a fire in Burke County has been burning for a month and has slowly consumed 5,400 acres.
The blaze, now 95 percent contained, was helped along by low humidity and dry conditions, forest service officials said.

The fire, covering 8.4 square miles, has burned considerably less land and has not caused damage to personal property like the Western blazes, which have consumed homes, lives and, in some cases, six times more acreage. But the Burke County fire has been difficult to extinguish, Forest Service officials said, because of the steep and rugged terrain and because fire smoldered beneath layers of dry leaves and timber.

"You can't get good footing, you don't have a good escape route, you have thick brush that you can't walk through," said John Strom, a U.S. Forest Service ranger from Arkansas.

Strom spent 18 days in the Pisgah National Forest, where the blaze began June 8, and said the mulch covering the ground allowed smoke and heat to fester inches below the surface.

"This is pretty dang thick stuff, just a mass of organic matter," Strom said.

The fire consumed 1,900 acres in mid-June, and firefighters thought they had nearly contained it. But 10 days later, it sparked up again and, in a week, more than doubled to 4,517 acres, officials said.

More than 200 crew members from across the country descended on the mountain to dig dirt canals to stop flames from jumping onto unburned land, chopped at charred tree trunks to make sure fire wasn't smoldering inside and dropped water from helicopters onto the forest.

Rains that fell in the area generally missed the fire and only dampened the dry ground, offering firefighters little help.

Eric Magraner, 20, traveled from Colburn, Va., with a 15-member crew to "mop up" the area and make sure lingering smoke in extinguished and quenching the parched land with water.
The more than 15-hour days are draining, he said, but making sure the flames don't spread and destroy homes, is rewarding.

"People come up to you and say, `God bless you. Thanks for what you're doing,' " he said. "That feels good."

About 2,000 acres of the land burned was set by crews to contain the fire and control the path of the blaze.

By Tuesday afternoon, crews had the fire 95 percent contained, said Dennis Wahlers, a forest service spokesman. He said firefighters hope to fully contain the blaze by the weekend.

Even when the fire is contained and the flames have disappeared, watching for hot spots and lingering smoke is key to making sure another fire doesn't spark, Strom said.

"If you get complacent, even for a little bit, it's just like a gator coming up behind you out of the water," he said. "It's going to bite you in the butt."


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