BRUNSWICK COUNTY — For the most part, the rain has stopped, and the Pulp Road Fire is 68% contained as of Friday.
READ MORE: Controlled burn turns into wildfire, contributing to smoke in tri-county
One question still lingers among Brunswick County residents and beyond: Who is responsible for the blaze that has scorched nearly 16,000 acres of the Green Swamp Preserve? An investigation is underway.
According to the North Carolina Forest Service Public Information Officer Phillip Jackson, the Pulp Road Fire was a result of a prescribed burn by the Wildlife Resource Commission. The agency intended to burn 399 acres of land on Tuesday, June 13, and extinguished it the next day. However, by Thursday, two days later, the fire had reignited and grew to encompass 2,000 acres.
Since then, the flames have engulfed more than 15,000 acres of land. The outcome is not what was expected.
The N.C. Forest Service said the weather conditions when the controlled burn started were favorable based on the readiness plan set by the state. Readiness plans — ranging from 1 (being the lowest) to 5 — are based on daily staffing levels available for the service emergency response resources.
Each plan level corresponds to the fire’s expected danger and the resources needed on a given day. The prescribed burn in Brunswick County was labeled an RP2, meaning conditions were acceptable for handling the burn.
Before conducting a controlled burn, an agency must obtain an open-burning permit through the N.C. Forest Service. The permit must remain in effect until the prescribed burn ends. The operation is overseen by a certified burner, who is registered with the forest service and follows an approved plan, with a copy on site at all times during the burn period.
“How the prescribed burn became a wildfire is currently undetermined and remains under investigation,” Jackson said.
Factors — such as size, intensity, containment, rate of spread, topography and weather conditions — have an impact on how quickly investigations are completed. Sometimes larger wildfires require more time.
“Public safety is the top priority,” he added.
The investigation will determine who was responsible for the blaze, or who should be held accountable for any health hazards from the smoke.
Though he noted, to his knowledge, the N.C. Forest Service has never separated an employee due to outcomes of a fire investigation.
The number of prescribed burns statewide has varied over the last five years, according to data from the N.C. Forest Service. In fiscal year 2021-2022, there were 1,006 burns statewide. Of those, 135, or 13%, took place in district 8, comprising Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Duplin, New Hanover, and Pender counties.
Based on the tracked burns, district 8 averaged 15% of statewide burns since fiscal year 2017-2018.
The numbers may not be complete, Jackson said, since prescribed burn operations from private entities are reported only voluntarily to the N.C. Forest Service. Thus, the exact number of prescribed burns that turned into wildfires in the state was unavailable; however, Jackson said it is a “very rare occurrence.”
Since the Green Swamp Fire, there have been questions about the safety of prescribed burns. Some officials, such as U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, blame climate change and poor planning for incidents such as April 2022’s fire in New Mexico.
The prescribed burn led by the U.S. Forest Service turned into to the largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history. Three hundred fifty thousand acres of forest went up in flames and 1,300 homes were destroyed by the blaze, which took five months to contain. As a result, the U.S. Forest Service put a moratorium on prescribed burns nationwide for 90 days.
There is no moratorium on prescribed burns in Brunswick County as a result of the wildfire — or anywhere else in the state — according to Jackson.
“In the event that a state-issued burn ban on all open burning has been instituted by the Commission of Agriculture, the N.C. Forest Service will also pause all burning operations,” he said.
U.S. Forest Service Chief Moore said burns have gotten riskier as a result of changing environmental conditions. Nevertheless, the practice is still essential in the “firefighting toolbox.”
Associate head of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University, Dr. Christopher Moorman, said prescribed burning in North Carolina dates back thousands of years. Native Americans began burning the land to drive game, improve grazing conditions for wildlife, clear land for farming and improve their own safety from concealed attackers and from wildfires.
“European immigrants readily adopted the Indians’ woodsburning practices to improve range for cattle, reduce the risk of wildfire, increase visibility of snakes and large predators and improve access,” Moorman said.
As a common practice today, the N.C. Forest Service believes controlled burns are advantageous for the health of the land because of the varied species and landscapes of that area, particularly in North Carolina.
Fire-dependent plants and animals commonly found in the state are gopher frogs, pine snakes, pitcher plants, Venus’ Flytraps, longleaf pines, bog spicebushes and prairie warblers. All of these species can be found inside the Green Swamp Preserve.
According to The Nature Conservancy, the Green Swamp Preserve has at least 14 species of insectivorous plants, as well as orchids and long leaf savannas. All of them benefit from fires, as their roots are protected by even the hottest blazes. Flames knock back shrubby vegetation and allow light to hit the forest floor, so low-lying plant species can exist.
“The benefits of prescribed fire far outweigh the risks associated with the forest management practice,” Jackson said. “Low-intensity, prescribed fires help improve wildlife habitat and promote healthier forests while reducing risks from wildfire.”
North Carolina’s diverse ecosystems and topography also mean fires will burn differently across the coast, Piedmont and mountain ranges, he added.
Debbie Crane, communications director for The Nature Conservatory, said though it is always possible wildlife might have perished during the wildfire, she saw many plants and animals in good health after the blaze.
“There was a refuge for many of the animals to go to — because many of the savannas didn’t burn because there was no fuel to burn them. We’ve seen more pitcher plants than we were aware of because of it,” Crane said. “Many areas of the swamp looked just like they did before the burn.”
As for the Green Swamp Preserve flora, some have already bounced back. The Forest Service reported Wednesday that grasses were beginning to recover in the preserve. Firefighter equipment had been kept out of the area to avoid negative impacts on the rare ecosystem and sensitive plants.
“The typical topography in the nature preserve is a fire-dependent species and a fire-adaptive species,” Jackson said. “They need fire to survive. Once the area cools off, you should see green pretty quickly.”
He compared the future results of Green Swamp to what he saw after the Pilot Mountain Wildfire in November 2021. That wildfire was caused by an escaped campfire and burned 1,050 acres before it was finally contained.
“It was bright, and a lot of pictures were ugly,” Jackson said. “It looked like a pretty catastrophic event, but it was pretty low-intensity because our people were able to manage it like a prescribed burn. If you go to Pilot Mountain now, even in the first spring after the fire, it was hard to find the scar of the fire.”
Catch up on previous coverage of the Pulp Road wildlife here.
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