North Carolina Wildfire, Smoke, and Air Quality Map

Fire season and landscape

The mountains carry a genuine fall fire season in drought years, when cured leaf litter, wind, and steep slopes align in the Nantahala and Pisgah country. Statewide, the more routine window is late winter into spring before green-up. On the coastal plain, fires that reach pocosin organic soils can smolder for weeks and keep smoke in the air long after the flame front is gone.

The Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests hold the state's steep western fire country, some of the most rugged terrain in the East. The Uwharrie National Forest covers older, lower mountains in the piedmont, and the Croatan National Forest sits on the coast with pocosin and longleaf that burn on a different rhythm than the mountains. Hurricane rainfall and river flooding round out the coastal plain's hazard profile.

• Croatan National Forest and coastal-plain pocosin fires smolder in organic soil for weeks; the 7-day hotspot layer shows their persistence long after the perimeter stops growing.
• Fall wind events on the Nantahala and Pisgah escarpments drive the mountains' worst fire days; the red flag warning layer maps them as they are issued.
• Hurricane rainfall floods the Neuse, Cape Fear, and Tar basins for days after landfall; the river gauge layer follows the crest downstream.