Trees blown down by Hurricane Helene impeded hundreds of firefighters working to control wildfires that burned thousands of acres throughout the Carolinas last month.
And the problem could last decades.
While the most recent wildfires 鈥� the largest in western North Carolina in almost a decade 鈥� are mostly contained, firefighters have only just begun to see how the worst storm in the state鈥檚 history made fighting fires more complicated.
鈥淭he North Carolina Forest Service has never fought fire in storm damaged, hurricane blow down in the southern Appalachians on a 60% slope,鈥� Bo Dossett, the Madison County Ranger for the state鈥檚 forest service, said.
鈥淲e've never done that. I don't really know that anybody's ever done that.鈥�
The Black Cove and Deep Woods fires burned more than 7,500 acres over two weeks in Polk and Henderson counties. As those fires caused evacuations and destroyed at least 11 homes, several others in Haywood, Swain and Buncombe counties started. The Table Rock fire started in South Carolina and crept across the state line into Transylvania County, causing more evacuations.
Downed trees provided fuel for the fires.
鈥淭his is definitely going to become, at least the way I see it as our new normal,鈥� Michael Cheek,鈥妕he Mountain Division Director for the NC Forest Service, told BPR. 鈥娾�滻t's gonna be a long-term issue and more than likely, it's gonna get worse.鈥�
Cheek, a 29-year veteran of the Forest Service, said the post-Helene landscape is new territory for fire crews who battle steep slopes, narrow roads and mountain terrain already. Now the land is scarred by storm damage 鈥� roads that crews could use are washed away, rivers that served as natural fire breaks are rerouted and countless trees on the forest floor make navigating the area an arduous task.
鈥淭hey really make it logistically tough to get around small wildfires,鈥� Cheek said. 鈥淗and crews can't cut through the large debris piles. Bulldozers can't push through them, so we have to find ways around them.鈥�
And those trees don鈥檛 only block fire crews, they act as fuel for the fires. Leaves and thin branches of Helene-downed trees burned during the most recent wildfires 鈥� the trunks are still retaining water, Dosset said.
But they will eventually dry out.
鈥淲e're really only at the very beginning of seeing how that Helene debris is going to affect wildfires for the next decade, maybe multiple decades,鈥� Dossett told BPR. 鈥淲e're kind of flying blind. We've never seen something like this before.鈥�
In the final two weeks of March, the NC Forest Service monitored more than 500 fires that burned more than 12,000 acres, according to Cheek. The acreage is double the 10-year average for fires in March.
