PENDER COUNTY, N.C. — The North Carolina Forest Service has been working for a week to put out a wildfire in Pender County Game Lands called the "Juniper Road Two Fire." The crew working on the fire says the organic components found in the soil could keep it burning for months.
What You Need To Know
- The fire started from a lightning strike, and then spread out of control
- The fire is now nearly 80% contained
- Crews have started to demobilize, with operations personnel and a more condensed management team remaining on-site
- The fire will be monitored for some time as the organic soil can hold heat deep beneath the surface and cause other fires to spark up
The Juniper Road Two Fire in the Holly Shelter Game Lands has already burned 1,226 acres. That may sound intimidating, but not for N.C. Forest Service Division Supervisor Corey Klamath, who has been putting out fires for over 15 years.
“We’ve been in this situation before, we know this type of ground,” Klamut said. “We see this stuff, it’s our area. I live in this area, so we’re pretty used to it.”
But just because they’re used to it doesn’t mean it’s any easier to put out. This fire at the Game Lands provides its own unique challenges.
“The ground is very tough ground, it’s dry, but there’s not a lot of bottom to it,” Klamiut said. “Which means the bottom of the dozers are getting stuck a lot, the traffic-ability is very difficult, and you can’t use engines or anything like that out here, so it’s the ground that’s hindering us.”
Not only is the ground making it hard to put the fire out, it’s also feeding the fire.
“This is organic soil, so they have organic particles in it mixed in with the mineral soil,” Klamut said. “So it does burn, our dirt burns here and it can creep around until it finds available fuel where it will start another fire.”
The Forest Service has been doing all they can to help control the fire, including using air crafts to drop water on it.
“Our first day on the fire, when it was really raging,” said Patrick Easler, a suppression pilot for the N.C. Forest Service, “I think we did about 60 buckets. Each bucket is about 200 gallons.”
Easler said that this is just one of many fires he’s had to work on this fire season.
“So this season in particular has been, I’ve heard the worst in 11 years. So it’s been a very busy season,” Easler said. "All in all, I think I’ve done over a couple thousand buckets just in the six months of this season pretty much, so it’s been very busy, very exciting.”
While Easler said that he predicts having plenty more fires to work on in the next couple months, those working on the fire in the Game Lands will have to stay put. That pesky organic soil can hold heat deep beneath the surface, and unless a significant amount of rain comes, it can cause more fires to start at any time.
“We’ll be working on it for a while. We’ve been doing some IR flights, there’s still a lot of heat out here so we don’t want to let our guard down,” Klamut said. “We’ll be out here for a while, until we get significant rain, and we’ll still be monitoring it for a long while to come.”
The N.C. Forest Service says the fire is now nearly 80% contained and crews are starting to demobilize. Operations personnel and a more condensed incident management team will remain on the scene.
You can keep up with updates on the Juniper Road Two Fire here.