BRUNSWICK COUNTY — The North Carolina Forest Service has determined a lightning strike was the cause of a 300-acre wildfire that began last Friday in Shallotte, but the ruling has drawn skepticism from local residents citing a lack of recent storms. However, experts on the matter have called the conclusion credible.
The fire started on Friday, July 10, on a day with no rain and no lightning, also as the county had moved into an exceptional drought and a stage three water capacity alert.
Residents speculated other sources could have started the fire — open-burning debris, someone setting off fireworks and even arson.
Ethan Clark, founder of the North Carolina Weather Authority, also posted to his popular socials a disbelief there was enough evidence to determine lightning as the cause. He said while lightning could cause a fire one or two days after a strike, he didn’t observe any lightning-producing storms in the days preceding the fire.
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The National Weather Service — used by the North Carolina Forest Service for nature events according to Steve Pfaff, lead meteorologist — does not keep an archive of lightning, but Pfaff was able to confirm Brunswick County had a storm on Monday, July 6. The Weather Channel also lists storms occurring on July 6 and 7, with the former date featuring lightning.
Though the fire started three or four days later, scientific experts and a seasoned fire-investigator-turned-commissioner confirmed a lightning strike could reasonably be the cause due to the possibility of underground smoldering.
The North Carolina Forest Service did not answer Port City Daily’s inquiries about what evidence the agency had proving lightning was the cause. Instead, it reconfirmed the findings and provided a general theory behind the “sleeper,” or “holdover,” fires.
“With lightning holdovers, it can mean days, even weeks of dormancy,” spokesperson Christie Adams said. “Latent heat is kicking around in available fuels, such as standing dead snags, woody debris, root systems, true organic soils or deep duff.”
Scott Rudlosky, a physical scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a U.S. agency known for its weather forecasting and monitoring of oceanic atmospheric conditions, explained experts often look 14 days prior to a fire starting if it is suspected to be caused by lightning.
Both Rudlosky and Peng Gao — a professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington who specializes in wildfire, climate extremes and landscape ecology — further confirmed the explanation on latency.
“These fires can often dwell or hold over for several days before the weather conditions change and the fire grows,” Rudlosky wrote in an email to Port City Daily.
Gao explained dry lightning storms also often cause holdovers.
“A lightning ignition may initially smolder in duff, roots, stumps, decaying wood, or other organic material,” he said. “It may produce little visible smoke or flame at first. The fire can later become more active or spread into surface vegetation when conditions become hotter, drier, or windier.”
Commissioner Randy Thompson said the area that caught fire in Shallotte is mostly forest, but added one “piece of it had been cleared some time ago and had already started to grow back.”
He also backed Gao’s explanation, noting the composition of the soil in the area was “very heavy” and said the fire could have burned underground until winds increased. The winds made the wildfire harder to control Friday and Saturday, according to the North Carolina Forest Service as crews worked to contain the flames, with one firefighter experiencing a minor injury.
“The extremely dry conditions reported in Brunswick County would also make continued smoldering more plausible because dry organic fuels are more receptive to ignition and sustained combustion,” Gao said.
Thompson was formerly a fire investigator for Brunswick County and explained it’s normal practice for investigators to share “the most practical” reason behind the fire, while continuing looking into the matter. According to the North Carolina Forest Service, the investigation is still open.
Thompson added several investigators from the state and local agencies examined the scene of the incident on Tuesday as well.
“I was told that the forestry law enforcement officer identified an area that had had a lightning strike and he recorded it as the potential possible ignition source,” he explained.
The forest service’s spokesperson, Adams, added a holdover fire isn’t new to the area. In 2008 and 2011 there were lightning-induced wildfires on both Evans Road, which is Bolivia, and Pains Bay, which is in Dare County, respectively — both are in areas rich with organic soils.
“These fires ignited during periods of persistent and prolonged drought, burned for weeks and consumed more than 40,000 acres each,” she said.
As of Wednesday, the Quarry Road fire in Shallotte has burned 283 acres and is 55% contained, according to the forest service. Some ground fire and active flaming are still being managed by mop-op crews, who minimize rekindling of hot spots to secure containment.
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