Single Publication

Great Lakes Fire Morning Update, April 26, 2023

Join us for an in-person community meeting tomorrow evening, Thursday, April 27th, from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm. at Creekside Elementary School. The school is at 2790 Landscape Drive in New Bern. This meeting will also be hosted virtually on Facebook Live at https://fb.me/e/5RLxG0dUj.

Note: There have been an overabundance of offers from the public regarding donations to the fire efforts. We are extremely grateful to the community for the support shown to firefighters. We currently do not have the capacity for processing and storing donations on site. In lieu of donations to the Great Lakes Fire incident, we ask that you consider making a monetary donation to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.  

Great Lakes Fire: The Great Lakes Fire, located within Croatan National Forest, one mile South-Southeast of New Bern, started on April 19th. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. It is burning in pocosin swamp and mixed fuels. The fire is burning within the imprint of the 2012 Dad Fire, which burned roughly 21,331 acres. Previous prescribed burning by the U. S. Forest Service staff helped slow the fire spread by reducing the amount of burnable vegetation. No structures have been lost and none are currently threatened. 
 
Acreage: 32,400 acres Containment: 30% 

Personnel and Equipment: 184 total personnel; 4 Helicopters, 15 Type-6 Engines, 22 Type-2 Tractor Plow Units, 1 Fixed Wing Aircraft, and 1 tracked vehicle. 
 
Today: Fire crews plan to continue reinforcing firelines west, and south of the fire to provide further protection to forested areas and Weyerhaeuser timberlands. They are also constructing new contingency lines to the northeast of the fire to increase protection of surrounding communities. The eastern side of the wildfire has shown no smoke during reconnaissance flights, so is in monitoring status only. Initial attack firefighters are assigned to the incident on standby and are ready to respond to new fire starts on and around the Great Lakes fire imprint, offering increased protection to the local communities. Aerial flights scanning with infrared technology continue to take place, focusing on areas still smoldering beneath the ground. Maps generated from infrared flights indicate heat across the interior of the wildfire. Firefighters continue working closely with the National Weather Service and cooperating agencies. Operational resources include personnel from the U.S. Forest Service, N.C. Forest Service, Craven County Emergency Services, Jones County Emergency Services, the U.S. Marine Corps and Weyerhaeuser Corporation.

Weather and Fire Behavior: Today’s weather forecast calls for partly cloudy skies becoming mostly cloudy in the afternoon with isolated showers possible. There is a 10% chance of wetting rain, calling for 0.01” rainfall amounts around the fire area. Winds will be blowing out of the East at 7-12 miles per hour with gusts of up to 18 miles per hour in the afternoon. The cloudy conditions and potential for rainfall will keep fire behavior quelled for much of the day, with a slight potential for increased activity (smoldering and smoke) during periods of clearing skies and wind.

During morning briefing Mike Housh, Fire Behavior Analyst for the Southern Area Red Team, encouraged firefighters to stay vigilant to the task. “We’ve had consecutive days of cooler weather which hasn’t caused fire behavior to increase, however, history of past fires in this same fuel type shows that we must do what we can now to prevent the fire waking up and running months down the road”, notes Housh.  

Air quality: Information on current air quality data for North Carolina is at https://www.airnow.gov/.  

Closures: Road closures on County Line Road and Catfish Lake Road remain in effect. Updates to road closures surrounding the fire is at https://drivenc.gov/. 

Temporary Flight Restriction: A Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) remains in place over the fire area; information is at Federal Aviation Administration website. This is necessary to protect aerial operations. If there are intrusions into the Temporary Flight Restrictions, we must stop aerial operations.