A Carteret County commissioner has been cited for a debris burn that scorched more than 500 acres in the Down East community of Atlantic.
The North Carolina Forest Service on Tuesday cited Commissioner Christopher James Chadwick, 53, of Stacy, for violating North Carolina General Statute 14-140.1. The infraction carries a fine of not more than $50.
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According to the statute, any person, firm, corporation or other legal entity who burns any brush, grass or other material that puts at risk any property without “keeping and maintaining a careful watchman in charge of the burning,” shall be guilty of an infraction.
“Fire escaping from the brush, grass, or other material while burning shall be prima facie evidence of violation of this provision,” according to the statute.
Chadwick told Coastal Review Friday that he had obtained a permit about three weeks ago for burning trees and debris from a tornado that struck Atlantic earlier this year. The debris was contained within Chadwick’s roughly 50 acres adjacent to Marine Corps Outlying Field Atlantic and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service land.
“I was watching it myself, and I had a helper watch too, and, you know, we haven’t done any burning for three weeks,” Chadwick said. “We had a couple of hot spots that would pop up here and there, and we’d take the excavator and put them out with sand on top of them, and then there was no smoke, nowhere for probably a week and a half, two weeks, until Sunday when the fire started.”
He said once the flames reached the neighboring wooded areas, “it just went like gasoline.”
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Chadwick said the area had not seen a prescribed burn in about 15 years. “This reinforces the importance of managing the forest,” he said.
The commissioner praised the firefighters, Forest Service and Marine Corps for their role in responding to the fire. Chadwick said he was thankful nobody was hurt and that the fire wasn’t worse.
“I’m sorry the incident happened. We thought we were doing all the right things with the permit and the watchmen, and certainly it’s been so dry and blowing hard past two or three weeks, we haven’t done any burning,” Chadwick said.
