Fire season is just beginning, but already five fires are lighting up the Nantahala National Forest. About 130 people are busy battling the blazes, with crews coming from as far as Alaska to help with the firefighting efforts.

Nantahala District Ranger Mike Wilkins was headed to church Sunday morning, Oct. 23, when he got the call. A forest fire had ignited the Dicks Creek area of the Nantahala National Forest, near Sylva. Fire Management Officer Greg Brooks was already on the scene, and the response had to start ASAP.  

“I was walking out the door, literally on the porch,” Wilkins said. He turned himself around, changed out of his Sunday best and drove out to meet Brooks, sizing up the challenge set before them.

Firefighters on the Dicks Creek Fire near Sylva have reported drone activity near the fire.

Smoke is clouding the Sylva area following the eruption of a wildfire Sunday, Oct. 23, which grew to about 374 acres by Tuesday morning, Oct. 24. Take a drive along U.S. 74, and you’re likely to feel an itch in your throat from the smoke. Look for a mountain view, and the slopes ahead will appear covered by a gauzy haze.

A lawsuit over the historic sawmill that burned down at Haywood Community College nearly four years ago was settled last week in a ruling by the N.C. Court of Appeals.

A blaze in Cherokee has been fully contained, but not before burning up 400 acres of forest in the Qualla Boundary. 

“It was more than likely arson,” said James Condon, fire management officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Cherokee. “There was no lightning strikes in the area and there was no brush being burned.”

It’s been a couple of weeks since the downtown Sylva fire. And while most of downtown is humming along nicely, the handful of businesses directly impacted by the fire continue working to recover.

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“It doesn’t look salvageable to me,” Sylva Mayor Maurice Moody told a full house crowd during an emergency meeting following the fire.