Firefighters will burn wheat fields trying to control N.C. blaze

By staff and wire reports

COLUMBIA, N.C

Firefighters are planning to burn harvested wheat fields in rural eastern North Carolina to help control a wildfire that has burned more than 40,000 acres.

State Forest Division spokesman Bill Swartley said today the fields could provide fuel for the fire, which is burning in and around the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

Swartley said the largest concern for firefighters will be wind shifts, and they want to make sure the wheat fields won't help the fire spread if it swings toward firefighters. He said the fire could run three miles in an hour across the wheat stubble.

An evacuation order remains in effect for homes in a Hyde County subdivision. Swartley said some residents haven't left.

The fire is about 40 percent contained.

Smoke from the wildfire grew so thick in Hampton Roads on Tuesday night that 911 dispatchers were deluged with calls from residents reporting fire in their neighborhoods.

Dispatch centers in Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach answered calls from worried residents who noticed the smoke and smelled its strong odor. In Norfolk, firefighters were so busy they reduced the number of trucks they sent to fire calls.

The wildfire, which has burned for more than a week, has grown to 40,195 acres, or nearly 63 square miles – larger than the city of Richmond.

James Foster, a meterologist with the National Weather Service office in Wakefield, said that a cold front headed toward Hampton Roads made the winds shift north and pushed the heavy smoke into the region.

In Portsmouth, a thick haze of smoke settled around the downtown area shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, the 911 center said.

“Smoke conditions and the smell of smoke is getting strong in the Norfolk area,” Norfolk Fire-Rescue spokesman Jack Goldhorn said shortly after 8 p.m. “We are getting a high number of calls from residents in regards to the smell of fire.”

People reported smelling grass, rubbish or vinyl burning, he said. Norfolk got 15 to 20 calls between 6:15 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Suffolk got about 25 calls, police Lt. Debbie George said.

A spokeswoman for Sentara hospitals said there were no reports of emergency room visits in Hampton Roads for breathing difficulties.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said the air quality index in Hampton Roads would be code yellow today, an improvement over Tuesday’s code orange. Under the orange status, the air can be unhealthy for certain people to breathe.

As relief from the heat comes today, winds will shift, likely changing the direction of the wildfire’s spread and possibly clearing smoke from the air in Hampton Roads, Elizabeth City and other communities north and west of the Albemarle Sound and the Outer Banks by evening. The fire is in a rural, three-county area about 50 miles west of the Outer Banks.

The smoke may return by Friday, said Casey Dail, a meteorologist at the weather service’s office in Morehead City, N.C. “But that’s pretty far out. I don’t want to speculate.”

The Associated Press and Virginian-Pilot reporters Ryan Hutchins and Patrick Wilson contributed to this story.

Ryan Hutchins, (252) 441-1627, ryan.hutchins@pilotonline.com

Patrick Wilson, (757) 446-2957, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com