Dozens of other fires have emerged in Georgia and western North Carolina. Fallen trees can act as fuel and fuel, and in the short term can help spread fires, according to Virginia Iglesias, who studies the impact of climate change on the social and environmental system at Boulder, Colorado.
“After the hurricane, a lot of dead trees fall on the ground, allowing sunlight to reach the ground,” Iglesias said. “And so, biomass is easy to dry out and it's easy to promote fire if it's ignited. It's short-term. Another consequence of these fires is that it represents access issues for firefighters. So there are a lot of logs blocking the road.”
This happened last week in Polk County, North Carolina. There, firefighters struggled to navigate between fallen trees, containing almost 500 acres of fire in the area, reported Blue Ridge Public Radio. These fallen trees can be a nuisance to fires for years after a hurricane, especially in the southeastern parts of the country where dry pine needles are highly flammable.
For example, in 2018, Hurricane Michael decimated the Florida Panhandle's long-leaf pine habitat, which was then burned the Versus Wamp Road Fire in 2022, which burned more than 33,000 acres.
Some firefighter experts are concerned that extra sunlight on the landscape can cause the growth of plants such as South Appalachian Rhododendrons and mountain laurels.
“And now we're experiencing sunshine that wasn't fully exposed to sunlight,” Gary C. Wood, a retired North Carolina Forest Service worker who is now coordinating the Wild Fire Leadership Council's wildfire management strategy for the southeastern region, told mail and courier companies. “That kind of thing could really increase on the growth front, and that would have a potential impact from a firefighter perspective.”
Fight fire with fire
While wide research clearly shows that climate change fuels more intense fires to the west, scientists still flesh out the direct climate connections of the Southeastern flames. However, some studies show that warming sets conditions for wildfire thriving across the region.
“Droughts are expected to be more severe and more frequent in the southeast and many other parts of the country due to climate change,” Iglesias said. A 2024 survey found that this could dramatically increase the amount of burned forests in southern Appalachia.
To combat this, forest managers in the area often include fires called planned burns. However, this strategy has several obstacles. More than 50% of the US 751 million acres of woodland are privately owned, and these owners decide how to manage the land. This means that agencies must obtain permission from the homeowner before clearing down trees that fell after a storm or allowing prescription burns on the land. There is growing push from several groups to help North Carolina homeowners embrace this fire management strategy, Grist reports.
Another snark is that a 2024 survey shows that climate change can reduce the number of days land managers can practice prescription burning in the southeast. The vegetation should be dry enough to ignite and burn, but temperature and wind should be moderately low to prevent the fire from becoming out of control. Like wildfires, prescribed burns can release air pollution, which can have a negative impact on air quality. My colleague Lee Hedgepes covers this issue currently happening in Birmingham, Alabama.
At the same time, the Trump administration has frozen funds and jobs in programs supporting wild firefighters in recent weeks, leaving a massive strip of countries that are not ready to take on massive wildfires, experts say.
