COURT HOUSE — Firefighters from around Cape May County had to contend with smoke reports June 14 from various locations, but it seems that smoke was originating in North Carolina and carried northward by the wind.
A smoky haze, which some reported as being “an electrical fire smell,” lingered throughout the day in Cape May County as temperatures went into the mid-90s in the afternoon.
A June 14 Associated Press story in the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer reported that firefighters in that state continued to battle a “massive wildfire in eastern North Carolina.”
Winds blowing to the northeast, gave those fire crews “more time to work on containment lines for the fire, which has burned more than 41,000 acres, or more than 64 square miles, in and around the Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge, said Dean McAlister, a spokesman at the incident command center for the fire,” according to the Observer.
Delaware officials reported smoke from the North Carolina fire, as well as another wildfire along the North Carolina-Virginia line, had prompted calls from residents in southern Delaware and the Maryland Eastern Shore.
A wildfire in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which straddles Virginia and North Carolina, prompted a smoke advisory Saturday for much of the Norfolk, Va. area, the newspaper reported.
Nearly 250 firefighters tried to contain the wind-fueled fire located primarily in the Virginia portion of the refuge. The fire, which started June 9, burned 1,438 acres and wiped out parts of a project to restore Atlantic white cedar trees.
In North Carolina, officials announced the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to pay 75 percent of the costs to fight the blaze. Fire officials estimate nearly $2.7 million has already been spent, the paper stated.
The shift in winds has the smoke from the fire drifting toward the Outer Banks and away from more heavily populated areas.
Areas north and east of the fire, including Edenton and Elizabeth City and the northern Outer Banks, remain under a Code Purple air quality warning through Sunday because of the smoke. It is the most severe air pollution warning the state has ever issued, the Observer reported.
The fire started June 1 from lightning strikes on private land. The blaze has burned mostly refuge land. No significant injuries have been reported, and no structures have burned. The wildfire is about 40 percent contained.
Cape May – Governor Murphy says he doesn't know anything about the drones and doesn't know what they are doing but he does know that they are not dangerous. Does anyone feel better now?
