MARSTON — Rangers with the N.C. Forest Service have spent the past two days battling a wildfire on the eastern edge of the county.
On Friday, a spotter plane flew overhead as rangers pumped what little water was running through Gum Swamp Creek to keep the fire contained.
County Ranger Jack Franklin said he was coming back from lunch Thursday when he saw the smoke.
According to Franklin, someone set a car on fire at the old boat landing of the now-dry Gum Swamp Lake bed.
Rangers from several counties, as far as Chapel Hill (Orange County) joined in the fight.
“We pinched it off last night with the helicopters as best we could, knowing we were going to have to come in here by foot today,” Franklin said Friday, driving a utility vehicle from the sand portion of Cognac Road to the spot where the bulldozer stopped and rangers began pumping operations.
A layer of soot covered the forest floor, with small fires still burning and smoke rising from the ground.
Franklin estimated the fire had burned about 100 acres of the swamp, making it one of the largest fires this year.
Last Saturday, two close-together wildfires burned about 40 acres off of County Home Road, north of Hamlet. Earlier this month, rangers battled a 60-acre wildfire on Loch Haven Road before it was doused by evening rains.
A man burning woods debris said embers jumped his containment line on April 22, resulting in a 3-acre fire on Mount Moriah Church Road south of Hamlet.
Friday evening, the Forest Service issued a press release asking residents of the Sandhills and Coastal Plain to put off burning for a few weeks, due to warmer temperatures and lack of rainfall.
The National Weather Service isn’t predicting any rain for Richmond County until May 28 — a week away.
According to the Forest Service, there have been more fires so far this year than in all of 2020.
“We started the month of May with 72 wildfires occurring just one day after the National Weather Service had issued a red flag warning for most of North Carolina,” State Forester David Lane said in a press release. “We’re in spring wildfire season right now, a time when conditions are more favorable for wildfire and rapid spread. The warm, dry weather pattern at play amplifies risk. We must take extra precautions to protect our wildland urban interface, those residential and developed areas where forestland mingles with homes and people.”
In April of 2020, a fire in the Osborne Swamp, south of Hamlet, burned about 150 acres.
