Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Public hears from incident command, emergency personnel 

COLUMBUS—At a community meeting held Sunday, March 23, at the Womack Building in Columbus, state and local firefighting personnel worked to calm the concerns of a large group of residents about the active wildfires in Polk County. By Monday morning, the Black Cove Complex of fires, consisting of the Black Cove Fire and Deep Woods Fire in the Green River Game Lands, and Fish Hook Fire in the Lake Adger community, had consumed nearly 5,000 acres.

Brian Rogers, operations section chief for the North Carolina Forest Service and a 20-year veteran of forest firefighting, began the meeting by sharing information on the fires. Rogers, a Polk County native, explained that the fires are feeding off “an extremely receptive” environment consisting of heavy leaf and vegetative debris accumulated over winter and a large number of trees on the ground in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

Using logging roads, creeks and streams as fire-stopping lines created with bulldozers and other equipment, Rogers detailed how crews have worked to contain fires on the ground.

Bobby Arledge, Polk County emergency management director and fire marshal, told the crowd he feels the county is getting good support.

“We have had resources from all over North Carolina and South Carolina helping us with these fires. We’ve had to reach out all the way to the other side of Charlotte and to Spartanburg for help,” Arledge said. “All these trees we’ve had down from Helene are a nightmare.”

He said even more resources are on the way, including extra helicopters to dump water and one equipped with heat-sensing equipment to pinpoint small fires.

Shane Hardee, a Forest Service incident management specialist, said resources include a meteorologist on staff providing updates on key weather factors such as wind speed and direction.

Hardee described the crowd as “the highest community turnout I have ever seen anywhere in the country, including California, Oregon, and Washington.” North Carolina has reciprocal agreements with Oregon and Washington because our fire seasons do not overlap.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein signed paperwork Saturday to declare Polk County a federal disaster zone. The approval of that request actually arrived during the community meeting, and Hardee informed the crowd.

Questions from the audience made it clear that regular communication of information about the fires’ status by state and local authorities was a top concern. Some complained that information was conflicting or inconsistent, and alerts have been absent in some cases.

Sensing their frustration, Hardee said, “The communication between us and local residents is important. We understand that everybody wants to know everything now.”

One resident asked for clarification on the definition of containment as it relates to the fires.

“We will not call a piece of land contained until we are close to 100% sure that that line is not going to escape,” Hardee explained. “We will likely start to see some containment in these other two fires in the next 24 to 48 hours.”

While a state of emergency was declared by county officials on day one of the fires, Hardee said there is a very detailed process for declaring a state of emergency at the state level.

“There a lot of boxes that have to be checked for the governor to declare a state of emergency, and we are working through that now,” he said.

To view the meeting, visit https://vimeo.com/1068640128?share=copy.