Wildfires threaten homes in western North Carolina
Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer describes efforts to contain wildfires spreading in western North Carolina due to dry conditions in the area.
Transcript
00:00 I'm along Green Mountain Road to the northeast of Hendersonville, North Carolina, right next
00:05 to the large plume from this wildfire that has burned almost 90 acres since yesterday
00:10 and rapidly expanded overnight, destroying one structure so far at least.
00:16 And today it's being driven by these strong northerly winds, very dry conditions, low
00:20 relative humidity values, and with temperatures into the low 60s, there's very high temperature
00:24 dewpoint spreads and an abundance of wildfire fuel too.
00:28 You can see all the dry foliage still on the trees as we're past peak in terms of the fall
00:33 colors.
00:34 And there's also drought conditions out here across the southeast, and that includes the
00:37 mountains of western North Carolina, where two wildfires right now burn.
00:42 And there's very high fire danger today and in the foreseeable future with these windy,
00:47 dry conditions persisting through the weekend.
00:50 So there's very likely going to be many more wildfires to come.
00:54 We need to heed those local evacuation orders because this wildfire is going to be capable
00:59 of some relatively unpredictable behavior with some changing wind directions, increasing
01:03 them.
01:04 So hopefully this will be driven toward containment, but so far today the wildfire continues to
01:09 expand.
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