Dimka Blackrose's blog: "stuff"

Oh I remember it very well I was in 4th grade we fire started and we had leave school and are homes.

On April 4, 1985, a wildfire raged across almost 5,000 acres in Burke County, destroying 27 homes.

The High Peak Fire ravaged 4,770 acres and cost more than $3 million to extinguish, according to Harry Jarrett, assistant ranger with the North Carolina Forest Service for Burke County at the time. Investigators later determined the fire’s cause was a local man burning garbage in a cleared garden area.
Though the man extinguished his own fire with a garden hose, investigators believe a single spark had time to spread without his notice. The Forest Service had issued a burn ban not long before, due to extreme weather conditions.
“I wouldn’t say it if I did know it, but I don’t remember if I ever heard this gentleman’s name,” Jarrett said. “There were a lot of death threats against this guy.”
The fire was classified as “contained” just days later, on April 6, but Jarrett worked it through April 11. After it was contained, the Forest Service continued to work to totally extinguish it.
Despite the vast amount of land and property damaged by the blaze, no one was injured in the High Peak Fire.
Jarrett later served as county ranger for Burke County, but when this fire blazed up in 1985, he had been assistant ranger for a mere two and a half months. He had no idea what the fire would turn into when he first responded that fateful day of April 4.
“I couldn’t have known,” he said. “I didn’t have the background to know. I knew conditions were bad.”
Though he would spend decades with the Forest Service, retiring in 2013, Jarret said he never will forget the impression the High Peak Fire made on him.
“I used to wonder, was it good or was it bad for me to cut my teeth on the worst fire in this county’s history,” he said. “After my whole career, I finally decided it’s probably a good thing — because I spent my entire career preparing for another one of these.”
Of the 27 homes destroyed, 22 were in the Lovelady District, according to Lovelady Fire Chief Winfield Abee. Abee had been with the fire department just a few years when the High Peak Fire broke out.
“When I was a younger firefighter watching training films, we used to see fires out in California and places where they have the big wildfires,” Abee said. “You’d see fires with flame heights of 50 to 75 feet, at the top of the trees. That’s called crowning over — the fires would be crowning over. I never thought I’d see that here in Burke County. It wasn’t 50 or 75 feet, but they were 30 or 40 feet flames in the top of the trees, just rolling.”
Though Burke County hasn’t seen a wildfire quite so bad in 30 years, the Table Rock Wildfire in November 2013 scorched almost 3,000 acres of Pisgah National Forest and burned for three weeks. Like the High Peak Fire, the Table Rock Wildfire was manmade, officials said.
As the state once again enters wildfire season, officials with the Forest Service are remaining vigilant.
“Spring is generally the worst time of year for wildfires in North Carolina due to low humidity, high winds, and buildup of cured fuels such as leaves from the fall and winter,” said Burke County Ranger Chris Moss. “When we do receive rain, the effects are short-lived and wildfire activity resumes in as little as 24 hours.”
The most common cause of wildfires in the state is people burning debris — just like the man whose trash fire sparked the High Peak blaze.
“People all too often make mistakes or just misjudge the weather, allowing their fires to get out of control,” Moss said. “Three of the most common mistakes are people not watching their fires carefully, not having a cleared boundary or fire line around the burn, and not paying attention to weather — especially winds.”
Though it has been 30 years, Jarrett says the High Peak Fire is something folks need to remember. By educating people about the past, he hopes to make the future a safer place.
“Every time I was invited to a Rotary Club meeting or anything like that, I’d always go,” he said. “I never turned anyone down.”