As of 10 a.m. this morning, the Kitchens Branch fire in Sylva is 94 acres and 60% contained.
“No evacuation orders are in place at this time. Please continue to monitor changing conditions,” a Jackson County Emergency Management said. “We ask the public to stay out of the area for public and firefighter safety.”
The Kitchens Branch fire was called in just after 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 26, amid dry conditions and high winds that have plagued the region in recent weeks. A burn has been in effect for the area since March 21. Local crews worked in collaboration with state and federal agencies throughout the night to contain the blaze in Sylva.
“We’ve sent people to other counties over the last week or so,” said Sylva Fire Chief Mike Beck in an update the Sylva Town Board Thursday morning. “We had two crews that went to Polk County, and then we sent a truck yesterday to Transylvania County on the Table Rock fire. So there’s a lot of fires going on all around us. Of course today we’re not sending anybody anywhere because we can’t, we’ve got to do our own. We have called in extra help today so we can get the brush fire and also still have protection for the town. We may have to do that a couple of days.”
According to Jackson County Emergency Management, there is a line around the fire. One structure is threatened but protected. Firefighters will conduct a burnout today, and residents should expect to see smoke.
“All it can do is go straight up the mountain right now, of course there’s nothing up there,” said Beck. “That’s how we left it last night, and that’s the reason we left it like that. We did everything we had to do yesterday to keep it off people’s houses, so everybody’s house should be fine.”
“They’ll go up there today and they’re going to come in above it and try and backburn it down, so it’ll look really bad for a little while today, but it’s really not; it’s under control,” said Beck.
Backburning is a firefighting technique in which crews set fires along a firebreak, or fire lines in the path of an active fire to consume fuel and create a firebreak. This serves to slow the fire down, eliminating brush that would otherwise strengthen the fire and allow it to spread farther faster.
Jackson County Emergency Management says that North Carolina and United States Forest Service will drop water on hot spots and conduct reconnaissance flights today. The public is reminded that wildfires are no-drone zones.