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Dry, breezy conditions prompt statewide burn ban

A heightened risk for wildfires due to dry weather conditions prompted a statewide burn ban starting Monday night.

Posted Updated

By
Aaron Thomas
, WRAL reporter
WENDELL, N.C. — A heightened risk for wildfires due to dry weather conditions prompted a statewide burn ban starting Monday night.
North Carolina’s Forest Service announced the ban on all open burning, which includes burning leaves branches and other natural materials, and canceled all burning permits until further notice. This ban comes days after crews battle a massive wildfire at Pilot Mountain State Park.

Firefighters said to hold off on all opening burning as dry, windy conditions can pick up a simple spark, fly hundreds of feet in the area and cause small fires.

"I know everyone wants to burn right now during the cold months," said Wendell Fire Department Captain David Wall.

"It just as simple as somebody flicking a cigarette down the highway and the high winds, they can cause this, it can cause hundreds of acres to burn," added Wall.

Wall said he knows how tempting it is to have a campfire or burn a fire pit in the fall.

"A lot of times, people don't think about high winds," he added.

Those high winds are contributing to increased wildfire activity in North Carolina.

The ban on open burning is an effort to reduce the risk of fires starting and spreading quickly.

"It's very dry right now and the rain we do get, it's not really dampening everything as much as we'd really like," said Wall. "You get 20, 30 mile per hour winds during the day and it dries everything out very fast."

The wind and drought have created challenging conditions at Pilot Mountain State Park, where firefighters estimate up to 900 acres will be burned.

"This mountain, it's more than just an economic piece for us here at Pilot Mountain. It symbolizes home, so it's emotional and spiritual for us to see it on fire," said Pilot Mountain Mayor Evan Cockerham.

Statistics from the North Carolina Forest Service show debris burning causes most large-scale fires in the state:

  • 20% of fires are incendiary, or fires ignited on purpose in areas they shouldn’t be.
  • 14% come from miscellaneous causes.
  • 8% are started from smoking.

Wall said most of the fires he responds around this time of year are unintentional.

"We recently just had an outside fire [where] they burned in a barrel like they were supposed to, they went to bed, they did not put it out and then the wind picked up at nighttime and sent embers into the woods," said Wall. "It burned close to people's houses. It can burn up people's cars, property, everything."

Anyone violating the burn ban faces a $100 fine plus $183 court costs, according to the state Forest Service

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