Cold Mountain fire now 50 percent contained

Press release from the National Forests in North Carolina:

Location: The Cold Mountain Fire is located in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area of the Pisgah Ranger District, Pisgah National Forest, approximately 20 miles south of Waynesville, North Carolina, in the headwaters of Crawford Creek.

Estimated acreage: Approximately 132 acres

Containment (as of 2/20, 4 p.m.): 50 percent

Fire cause:  The Cold Mountain Fire was reported on Friday afternoon, February 17, 2017.The human-caused fire is under investigation.

Resources on the fire: Approximately 83 firefighters and support staff, including 2 crews, 2 engines, 1 helicopter and various overhead, are currently assigned to the incident.  Additional personnel and resources will be requested as needed.

Current situation: Fire behavior today was low to moderate with little or no active fire movement enabling crews to make considerable progress. Crews were assigned to “cold trail” the fire edge and construct containment lines where needed using minimum impact suppression tactics given the fire’s location within Shining Rock Wilderness Area to protect the resource values associated with wilderness areas. Fire personnel were assigned to the ridge and drainage area east of Cold Mountain to recon the area for potential contingency line location if needed.  “Crews made excellent progress today and I want to personally commend them for their efforts,” stated Incident Commander David McFee.

Closures: An emergency closure order is in effect on national forest system lands in the following area: The Art Loeb Trail (#146) north of Shining Rock Gap and the Cold Mountain Trail (#141). See map below.

Cooperators: The Cold Mountain Fire is cooperatively managed under a unified command structure between the North Carolina Forest Service and the US Forest Service.

General fire information:

  • Safety of the public and firefighters is always the number-one priority when dealing with wildfires.

  • Firefighters are using direct and indirect tactics under a full suppression objective

  • Minimum impact suppression tactics will be used to protect all wilderness and resource values

  • Smoke may be visible in the surrounding area for several days

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About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes

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