Smoke from wildfires heads south again

Smoke from the two fires. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

A pair of fires in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and Dismal Swamp State Park continues to grow, having now burned almost 62-hundred acres, despite rainfall over the weekend.

Pumping operations of water from Lake Drummond to flood the fire zone have started.

But Timothy Craig, Fire Management Officer for Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, cautioned that the pumping operations will take time to have an effect on the fire.

“Even if six inches of rain fell in a week, we would still have to run the pumps for a month to put out this fire.”

385 personnel are now assigned to both the 6,150 acre Lateral West and the 7-acre Bull North fires. Trees have been falling along roads in the fire zone as the blaze burns out the nutrient rich peat soil around the roots.

“With the consumption of the organic material, the root structure is seriously weakened,” said Incident Safety Officer Brian Beisel. “This is going to be a concern, not only for the firefighters currently working here, but for anyone entering into these burned areas for some time to come.”

Firefighters spent much of Sunday clearing fallen trees from the Corapeake Ditch Road, so pumps and pipes can be brought in to continue pumping water from Lake Drummond into the ditch system around the swamp. Incident
Commander Mike Quesinberry adds, “The primary goal for us is to get these ditches completely filled.”

Once those ditches are filled, the water can then be pumped onto the smoldering peat.

Light northerly and westerly winds have again pushed smoke into northeastern North Carolina. Code orange air quality alerts have been issued through midnight Monday for Currituck, Camden and Pasquotank counties.

Smoke has been detected in the air on the northern beaches of Dare County this morning.

With Monday’s wind shift, the fire is expected to continue threatening Dismal Swamp State Park. Crews will continue to reinforce the bulldozer line already completed in the northwest corner of the park in northern Camden County, where about 1,000 acres have been burned by the main fire.

The Dismal Swamp Canal and Lake Drummond remains closed to boating because of the dense smoke, and all of the Dismal Swamp State Park is closed to access.

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