Table Rock wildfire grows over 8,600 acres, no containment
PICKENS COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) – The Table Rock fire has grown to more than 8,600 acres, according to the South Carolina Forestry Commission.
The Table Rock fire approximately quadrupled in size from Wednesday to Friday.
State and Federal agencies are working against the wind to try to get control of the fire, keeping first responders, the public, and properties on the forefront of their minds.
'Lord we thank you that you are continuing to bless us with the resources, the mindset, and all the things necessary to control this threat that we are under,' Chaplin Stoddard, with the SC Army National Guard prayed.
Various containment lines are in place. Crews said the lines have kept the fire away from homes.
The South Carolina Forestry Commission said the lines are constructed by bulldozers, where they remove vegetation down to bare soil.
'Down here along this Highway 11 corridor this is where a lot of focus was put early on,' Derrick Moore, Operations Section Chief for the Southern Area Blue Team with Federal Incident Management showed on a map.
The focus areas are continually monitored as crews say burnout operations, controlled burns that essentially take the fuel away before the fire reaches that area have also been successful thus far, and will continue.
'A priority for us is this Northeast line up in here,' Moore said. 'Particularly coming up from the lake and behind these structures.'
The South Carolina National Guard, in Pickens County, said their main focus is attacking the fire from the air. Four aircraft have dropped over 600,000 gallons of water so far.
'We are in the fight and will be here through the end,' Brigadier General Rob Stilwell, Adjutant General for the U.S. Army said.
For the first time ever in South Carolina, a very large air tanker DC-10 also dropped fire retardant on hard-to-reach areas.
Governor Henry McMaster visited the area on Friday and said between Hurricane Helene and the wildfires, resources have been stretched thin
He asks that the public be mindful of choices that could, even done innocently, lead to situations like this one.
'You see all these people here and all this equipment and searching and bringing other things from around the country and we can't put the fire out,' McMaster said. 'We gone get it out, hoping we gone have some rain help. Everybody put that in your prayers.'
Scott Phillips with the South Carolina Forestry Commission said Helene has caused significant impacts to this fire.
'Unfortunately a lot of it, we wont ever get all of it up but we do have some plans to use some Federal funding to do some mitigation efforts especially around communities,' Phillips said, regarding cleanup plans once the Table Rock wildfire is contained.
The fight is not over yet and according to the South Carolina Forestry Commission, it could continue for months to come. They said wildfire season has just begun.
'We are 28 days in and we haven't even made it to April 1 yet,' Phillips said. 'April is the month that we tend to have our biggest wildfires here in South Carolina.'
A new South Carolina bill was introduced Thursday to increase penalties someone could face for actions leading to fires like this one.
The Pickens County Sheriff announced on Friday that he knows people are curious about the charges the four teens responsible for this fire will face, but their focus right now is on getting the fire contained.
As of Friday evening, there is still no containment.
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