Smoke blankets east
Published 1:03 am Thursday, May 12, 2011
Wildfire moves through pocosin habitat as firefighting equipment and personnel make a direct attack, putting in lines next to the fire. (Submitted Photo/Donnie Harris/USFWS.)
At a Washington restaurant Tuesday evening and at another Washington eatery Wednesday at noon, the meal-time conversations included this question: “What’s that smell?”
The answer: Smoke and other airborne particulates from a 21,000-acre wildfire in Dare County. Known as the Pains Bay fire, the blaze is located in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The fire, about 19 miles south of Mann’s Harbor, has been burning since May 5.
The fire is blanketing many coastal communities with heavy smoke and unhealthful air conditions. State air-quality officials issued an air-pollution advisory for eastern North Carolina, from the coast to the Triangle area, as smoke from the blaze drifts downwind.
Forecasters have predicted Code Red or unhealthful air quality in southern Dare, Tyrrell, Martin and Washington counties as well as all of Beaufort, Craven, Green, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Pamlico and Pitt counties, according to air-quality officials.
Hyde County issued a health advisory for its residents as smoke from the fire drifts into the county.
Wesley Smith, director of the Hyde County Health Department, warns residents to take precautions to avoid breathing the smoke.
The warning was issued as a precaution, based on experiences from the Evans Road fire that affected Hyde County in 2008, Smith said during a brief interview Wednesday afternoon. No Hyde County resident had made an official complaint about smoke from the Pains Bay fire as of midafternoon Wednesday, he said.
Some Hyde County Schools students reported suffering watery eyes, headaches and stomach aches Wednesday, Smith said. Some students taking asthma medication had their dosages increased as a result of the smoke, he said.
“We are getting some smoke in Hyde County today,” he said in that interview. “We just wanted to make sure we gave (residents) some advice.”
State air-quality officials are keeping track of the fire and its smoke plume.
“Air-quality monitors operated by the N.C. Division of Air Quality have shown elevated particle pollution due to smoke from the fire, with concentrations reaching unhealthy levels at times in Goldsboro, Jamesville, Tarboro and Raleigh. DAQ’s monitor in Jamesville recorded unhealthy particle levels — higher than 200 micrograms per cubic meter — on Wednesday morning,” reads a DAQ news release issued late Wednesday afternoon.
“Our monitor closest to the fire is reporting very high pollution levels at times,” DAQ Director Sheila Holman said. “People who live in counties close to the fire, particularly sensitive groups, should limit their outdoor activities if they can see and smell heavy smoke.”
The Pains Bay fire’s smoke plume poses similar dangers as the Evans Road fire posed in late spring and early summer of 2008. That fire, which started in northwest Hyde County, burned a little more than 40,000 acres in and near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.
Smoke from that fire forced several 2008 Washington Summer Festival events to be postponed or canceled, including a fireworks show and triathlon. Construction workers in Beaufort County and other area west of that fire had to deal with that irritating smoke. Some siding installers became sick one morning while on the job at the Moss Landing project.
Fire-fighting efforts
As the Pains Bay fire continued to spread over the weekend, the Southern Area Blue Type 1 Team arrived at the Outer Banks to assume primary responsibility for fire-fighting efforts.
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and N.C. Forest Service are jointly managing fire-fighting efforts, with assistance from the National Park Service and firefighters with local fire departments (Stumpy Point, Mann’s Harbor, Roanoke Island and Colington).
The fire’s heat has prevented investigators from reaching the ignition point of the fire to determine what started the blaze.
“We have been working the containment lines today to strengthen them,” said Bonnie Strawser, spokeswoman for the wildlife refuge, Wednesday afternoon.
“Overall, we had a good day on the north end, close to Stumpy Point,” said Bill Sweet, public-information officer for the fire-fighting team, on Wednesday. “Our burn-out operations are going well.”
Burn-outs operations play a role in establishing containment lines used to fight wildfires, he said.
In addition to ground personnel and fire-fighting equipment, two helicopters and three fixed-wing aircraft were used Wednesday in aerial operations against the fire.
Pains Bay Fire Facts
• Acres: 21,563.
• Total personnel involved with fighting the fire: 170.
• Percent contained: 50 percent.
• Fuels involved: 4 chaparral (6 feet) pocosin with intermixed pine.
• Ten-mile section of U.S. Highway 264 between Engelhard and Stumpy Point closed.
• Cause: Under investigation, but lighting strikes believed to be prime source of ignition.
Source: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Smoke hazards
Smoke from the Pains Bay fire contains harmful levels of air pollutants, which may pose a health hazard at high levels, according local and state health officials.
The primary pollutant of concern is fine particles, which consist of very small particles and liquid droplets in the air. Particles can be harmful to breathe and contribute to haze and other air quality problems.
Fine particles can penetrate deeply into the lungs and be absorbed into the bloodstream, causing or aggravating heart and lung diseases. Persons most susceptible to particle pollution include those with heart and respiratory conditions, the elderly and young children.
In extreme cases, particle pollution can cause premature death.
Symptoms of exposure
to fine-particle pollution
• Irritation of the eyes, nose and throat
• Coughing
• Phlegm
• Chest pain or tightness
• Shortness of breath
• Asthma attacks.
Source: N.C. Division of Air Quality
About Mike Voss
Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.
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