California Fire experts weigh Carolina Forest Waldfeuer

Horry County, SC (WMBF) – A place where forest fires are not a stranger is California who attracted national attention when forest fires wiped out entire districts in January.

California fire experts now offer insights into the Carolina Forest Fire.

Although Carolina Forest's forest fire was not almost as large or destructive as the fires in Southern California at the beginning of this year, experts who went through these California fires said that there are some similarities- especially the strong winds that challenged auxiliary measures for first aiders.

First alarm | Wezige winds today, increased forest fire threatening

“This brings it into a kind of precarious position if the fire continues to grow or it flabbled from some hotspots in the forest, it would move to the populated areas,” said Mark Neveau, a former Fema President and retired in California.

Neveau said that when they looked at the Carolina Forest Fire, strong offshore winds, especially on Thursday, were concerned.

“I am sure that firefighters and incident commanders today receive exactly what you see and resources, which you call the protection structure, ie fire engine and trucks are located in neighborhoods in which this fire could protect itself from the potential of the oncoming fire brigade,” said Neveau.

And while Neveau said that the weather will look more promising for him in the coming days, the containment still needs time.

“Basically, they try the weeds, the forest, everything that burns and natural earth, dirt, between what is burned and what could be burned,” said Neveau.

And something else that will take up time- examining the cause of the fire after first aiders have finally included it.

“It could take a day for a simple fire; In other cases, the investigation could take up to one year if not up to one year, ”said Paul Lowenthal, Division Chef Fire Marshal of the Santa Rosa fire brigade in California.

Lowenthal said that every big fire that he went through was also a learning experience, not only for crews, but also for communities.

And he said that this is also associated with the enforcement of combustion transactions and red flag warnings that Horry County has done in the past few days.

“Really, if these arrests are made, it is really to punish a responsible person, but at the same time the community will clarify what could happen, what consequences some of these activities and some of these actions could have, and often an arrest can prevent someone else to do a similar activity,” said Lowenthal.

Experts added that if first aiders contain the fire, there is still a lot to do- including checking whether infrastructure damage is available.

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