Full Notification

General Wildfire Update: 3/24/25

A statewide burn ban remains in place. Though most of the state will see rainfall today, the weather conditions following the rainfall will once again cause ground cover to dry out quickly with fire danger returning, as the gusty winds and low relative humidity causes the moisture to evaporate. Do not burn.

Many locations across the state saw outside fires over the weekend. Thank you to the firefighters across our state that fought fires over the weekend. North Carolina's bravest are among the best in the country.

- The State Emergency Response Team remains in close contact with the counties and is coordinating any resource needs. There are no impediments currently to providing assistance to the counties.

- Over the weekend Polk County Local Government issued several evacuation orders. Many of these orders remain in place. You can follow the latest by visiting https://www.polknc.gov/emergency.../evacuations.php.

- The N.C. Forest Service remains in Polk County where a unified command is in place with representatives from the NC Forest Service, Polk County, and Henderson County.

- NCEM has emergency managers on scene filling various incident management team roles in Polk County and remaining in contact with counties statewide.

- NCEM activated the North Carolina Helo-Aquatic Rescue Team (NCHART) which is staged nearby with a Blackhawk from the North Carolina National Guard and rescue technicians that are specially trained firefighters and rescue technicians to preform helicopter rescues, in the event that firefighters become trapped or injured.

- NCEM has deployed tactical dispatchers, which are disaster trained emergency telecommunications personnel to the Polk County fires. These individuals deployed from Transylvania County 911, NCEM, Rockingham County 911, and Hamlet Rescue.

- NCEM deployed radio caches and communications equipment and supplies to Polk County.

- The NC OSFM (Office of State Fire Marshal) is on scene in Polk County and is assisting with fire department deployments from unimpacted areas. This morning OSFM activated the statewide fire resources rostering system and fire departments across the state are signing up for deployment to the mountains. Over the weekend OSFM helped to coordinate county to county mutual aid of firefighting assets.

- Over the weekend the federal government approved North Carolina's request for the Fire Management Assistance Grant (FMAG). An FMAG provides a financial reimbursement cost share to the state and local units of government for the cost of equipment, personnel, supplies, emergency work, and other costs for the direct management of a declared fire.

- You can monitor the current fires and their status by visiting https://ncfspublic.firesponse.com/...

- You can monitor the current fire danger levels in North Carolina by visiting https://products.climate.ncsu.edu/fwip/nc_danger/...

- Information on how you can resist wildfire danger at your home can be found at https://www.ncagr.gov/.../resist-wildfire-north-carolina...

Please make sure you have emergency alerts enabled on your cell phone to get the latest from your county emergency management officials.

Visit www.readync.gov for more information on how you and your family can be prepared for all disasters.