MILLS RIVER – A thick column of gray smoke could be seen from miles away the morning of Oct. 6, as a large fire at a Mills River mulch yard entered its third day of burning.
It is expected to smolder for days and perhaps more than a week, authorities said.
Firetrucks were on the scene that morning but firefighters didn’t appear to be actively fighting the flames. Wet hoses lay deflated on the ground in puddles of water.
The fire, at Riverside Stump Dump, at the intersection of NC 191 and NC 280, started around 2 a.m. Oct. 4, Mills River Fire Department Interim Chief Scott Burnette told the Times-News Oct. 6.
“Our crews have been working through the night,” said a Mills River Fire and Rescue Facebook post from just after 9 a.m. Oct. 4.
The fire is now 100% contained but is burning into the center of a pile of wood debris more than 30 feet deep and is almost impossible to extinguish, Burnette said.
The fire department’s priority now is to keep the fire from spreading as it runs out of fuel and eventually burns itself out.
Firefighters are keeping an eye on the blaze and will respond if it looks like it’s getting out of hand or threatening an office and fuel tank on the property or a nearby cell tower, Burnette said.
Nearby residents should expect smoke for days if not a week or more, he said.
“Fortunately, it’s all from natural vegetation, which is the least harmful type of smoke. The fires that involve plastics and petroleum products are much more hazardous. That being said, it’s important for folks who have any type of respiratory medical condition to avoid the area,” he said.
“It’s doing way better (since) last night,” Shawn Ray, whose family owns Riverside Stump Dump, told the Times-News Oct. 6.
A large portion of the wood and brush at the yard is from Tropical Storm Helene debris, and there is “significantly more” there now than before the storm, Ray said.
Burnette said the department doesn’t know for sure what caused the fire but that spontaneous combustion is a likely culprit. Dense piles of damp, decomposing vegetation can generate heat, catching themselves on fire.
Henderson County Engineer Marcus Jones told the Times-News in May that multiple fires had started that way at county-operated debris piles.
In January, a Weaverville Helene debris pile burned for two weeks, the Citizen Times reported.
This isn’t the first time the mulch piles at Riverside Stump Dump have burned, either.
Ray said he suspects the last fire there, around 15 years ago, was sparked by embers accidentally brought into the yard in a pile of wood or brush, though there are “too many” ways fires can start, often as simple as a discarded cigarette butt.
That fire was extinguished after about 24 hours.
“It catches quicker than you can put it out,” he said.
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George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at [email protected].