SOUTHEASTERN N.C. — It’s the time of year when Port City Daily counts down its most read pieces throughout 2023.
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When a controlled burn went awry in the summer of 2023 in Brunswick County, it was capturing headlines across news outlets daily for two weeks. Smoke from the blaze in Green Swamp Nature Preserve, which eventually expanded 15,000 acres, billowed across the tri-county region causing air quality warnings.
The burn started on Tuesday, June 13, on roughly 400 acres, prescribed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Though extinguished, it reignited on Thursday; by Friday it had grown to more than 11,000 acres, shuttering Highway 211 where firefighting crews from the N.C Forest Service battled the blaze.
“The area of the Preserve where this fire is burning has not seen fire of any kind since the 1950s,” NCFS Agency Administrator Tommy Sports said at the time. “Fuels have built up for about 70 years. Vegetation is thick.”
It was fully contained by July 5.
An investigation was launched into the controlled burn a week after it started; it was determined a N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission forester would be issued a warning only, reported a month after the fire here.
Below is the original report about the investigation from PCD:
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