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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