By Nazaneen Ghaffar
Two wildfires, each greater than 2,000 acres, more than doubled in size Sunday and raged uncontained in Polk County, North Carolina, after residents were ordered to evacuate among warnings of dire conditions.
At 8:20 p.m. Saturday, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation for parts of the county. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected by the evacuation order.
Officials warned of dangerous conditions, saying on social media that “visibility in the area will be reduced and roads/evacuation routes can become blocked; if you do not leave now, you could be trapped, injured, or killed.”
As of Sunday evening, the North Carolina Forest Service had reported four active fires in the county. The largest two — Black Cove, which grew Sunday to 2,076 acres, and Deep Wood, which also grew, to 2,545 acres — were zero percent contained.
Both fires are burning in timber on steep terrain on a mix of state-owned and private land in the Green River Gorge, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Nearly 250 firefighting personnel from across North Carolina and other states are working to prevent the fires from spreading to neighborhoods and structures, the department said.
Kellie Cannon, a spokesperson for the county, said Sunday afternoon that the Black Cove and Deep Woods fires “are coming close to meeting and they are separated by a road.”
She added that a code red air quality alert was in place for the county “because the smoke is very dense.” The alert means that the air is unhealthy for anyone exposed to it.
Polk County, in the western part of the state, is home to about 20,000 people.
The Forest Service had a statewide burn ban in effect, with the agency announcing that “under North Carolina law, the ban prohibits all open burning in the affected counties, regardless of whether a permit was previously issued.”
The threat of wildfires extended into South Carolina, where Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency in an effort to combat a wildfire known as the Table Rock fire in Pickens County.
That blaze ignited Friday in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and spread over 1,300 acres by Sunday evening.
“As this wildfire continues to spread, the state of emergency allows us to mobilize resources quickly and ensure our firefighters have the support they need to protect lives and property,” McMaster said in a statement.
Another fire, the Persimmon Ridge fire, started Saturday in the Mountain Bridge Wilderness area and had grown to more than 800 acres by Sunday evening.
The South Carolina Forestry Commission said that both fires remained zero percent contained as of Sunday night.
Around 100 homes were under voluntary evacuations just east of Table Rock State Park on Sunday, while another 500 homes remained under close watch. Officials from the South Carolina Forestry Commission urged people to stay away from the area.
The Storm Prediction Center issued an elevated fire-weather risk Saturday for an area from northern Georgia, through western portions of the Carolinas and into central Virginia.
Fires have been fueled by weeks of below-average rainfall, with much of Polk County experiencing moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
These conditions are common in spring, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
“Right around when the leaves start coming up on the trees, right around green-up,” he said. “There’s a lot of dry fuels on the ground, so it’s easy for them to burn.”
Some relief arrived Sunday night, when showers were expected to increase humidity levels.
Beyond that, Oravec said, conditions will remain mostly cool and dry across the eastern United States.
“No real big blockbuster rains to really help the drought conditions,” he said.