Photo courtesy of Lance Leftwich
Smoke from a forest fire at Pilot Mountain State Park can be seen rising from the tree-covered mountain from the Shoals community south of the peak of the mountain Friday afternoon.
Photo courtesy of Lance Leftwich
From the N.C. 268 overpass with U.S. 52, thick smoke can be seen hovering above Pilot Mountain from a forest fire that’s burned about 100 acres as of Friday afternoon.
PILOT MOUNTAIN — As of Friday afternoon, about 100 acres have burned at Pilot Mountain State Park, according to Charlie Peek, spokesman for the North Carolina Park Service.
“The North Carolina Forestry Service is taking over the situation. We’ve got about three dozen people up here on the ground, mostly digging hand lines south of the fire. The fire is not moving hardly at all, just smoltering,” said Peek.
The fire got out of control on Thursday and eight area fire departments were called in to help control the blaze. By 8 p.m., the fire, which was a controlled burn to eliminate the potential for a forest fire, had burned three acres, according to John Shelton, director of Surry County Emergency Services.
This business of calling a planned burn of forest "Controlled Burn" is perpetuating the myth that people can burn forest land in a controlled manner. The Croatan fire earlier this year was a "controlled fire" planned for 1500 acres and ended up at 21,000 acres. This mistake cost taxpayers $1.2 million dollars.
In addition to the inability to control forest burning, the said reasons for doing so lack merit: reduce danger of wildfires, species/forest restoration, save money by eliminating the extensiveness of wildfires and the cost of extinguishing wildfires.
A growing industry is being built on burning forests. The industry stakeholders include consultants, equipment manufacturers, forest service personnel specialists, helicopter pilots, grant writers, associations, and believe it not supposed nature conservancies.
These stakeholders are busy working to have relevance with their careers/businesses/salaries. This industry is promoting burning and increasing their business share. One plan for burning next year is in the Grandfather District of the Pisgah Forest. The plan is to burn 40,000 acres including 12,000 acres in the Linville Gorge Wilderness. A great wonder is how and who can justify burning the Linville Gorge Wilderness when the "Wilderness" designation's intent is legislate that man can not interfere with this environment; no roads, no vehicles, no chainsaws..., and certainly not pay people to do it. What is going on here and why are we spending public money to support it?