Wildfire Returns to Same Brunswick County Woods That Burned for Weeks This Summer

A wildfire broke out Thursday evening in the same patch of woods outside Shallotte, N.C., that burned for nearly a month this summer, forcing the evacuation of a neighborhood, prompting an early dismissal at a nearby middle school and renewing concern about how a historically humid stretch of the North Carolina coast has become unusually fire-prone during a prolonged drought.

The new fire, which the Brunswick County government is calling the Quarry Road Fire Two, ignited Thursday afternoon between Old Georgetown Road and Lakewood Drive, near Hale Swamp and Bricklanding roads in the Shallotte area of Brunswick County, about 30 miles southwest of Wilmington. It is burning roughly a mile from the footprint of the Quarry Road Fire, a lightning-caused blaze that scorched 283 acres over nearly four weeks this past July.

What happened

Brunswick County emergency officials ordered residents of the Lakewood Estates neighborhood, off Ocean Isle Beach Road, to evacuate Thursday evening as flames and heavy smoke spread through the dry woods. Sheriff Brian Chism's office, the county's emergency operations center and crews from the North Carolina Forest Service responded, and a mass-evacuation bus was staged near Ocean Isle Beach in case residents needed transport. The order was lifted by about 9:15 p.m. the same night, and no one remained displaced overnight.

By Friday morning, smoke drifting toward Shallotte Middle School prompted Brunswick County Schools to begin dismissing car riders at 9:45 a.m. and buses fifteen minutes later, nearly two hours ahead of the normal schedule. The district said its operations staff had confirmed with the county's emergency operations center that there were no outdoor air-quality concerns for the general public, but moved students out as a precaution given the fire's proximity to the campus.

The numbers

As of Friday morning, the Forest Service had mapped the fire at 26.2 acres, with containment estimated at 30 percent, down from a rougher initial estimate of about 50 acres the night before as crews plowed fire lines and got a clearer look at the perimeter. No injuries and no structural damage had been reported, and the cause remained undetermined; the Forest Service said it would investigate once conditions allow crews to safely examine the point of origin. County officials said the fire was still active and generating visible flame and heavy smoke into the weekend, and warned residents to expect reduced visibility on nearby roads even though none had been closed.

That is a markedly smaller fire than the one that burned the same ground in July. The Forest Service's final report on that fire put its size at 283 acres, fully contained after nearly a month. It destroyed two non-residential structures — a commercial self-storage building and a residential storage building — threatened roughly 30 homes before evacuation orders were lifted, and left one firefighter with minor injuries.

How we got here

Investigators traced the July fire to a lightning strike on May 28 that smoldered undetected for six weeks in the duff — the layer of decomposing leaves, needles and bark on the forest floor — before erupting into visible flame on July 10. The agency's initial incident reports described the mechanism as a "holdover" fire, one that can smolder for weeks with little oxygen before conditions align to let it flare. Coastal Review, which has tracked the fire closely, reported that extended drought and record heat had dried the duff layer enough to make such holdover ignitions unusually efficient.

That drought has not broken. Southeastern North Carolina has spent much of 2026 under worsening dryness, and the state's Division of Water Resources reported in late August that while rain had eased conditions along parts of the coast, western Brunswick County remained in extreme drought and the town of Longwood, in the southern part of the county, was in its driest six-month stretch on record.

"The forecast for the entire state is for a hot, dry week or two. Conditions are improving, but as we have been saying, the drought isn't over yet," said Klaus Albertin, chair of the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council and a water resources engineer with the state Division of Water Resources.

Who is affected

The immediate toll from the new fire has been limited to disruption rather than loss: one evacuated neighborhood for a few hours, one school dismissed early, and smoke that has at times blanketed nearby roads. But the recurrence has unsettled a community still recovering from July, when the earlier fire burned through a stand of woods containing Rusher Bay Cemetery, a family-owned burial ground dating to the 1800s that is still in use and holds generations of local Black families with surnames including Gause, Bland, Bellamy, Frink, Flowers and Gore. WECT's reporting on the cemetery's damage found that some headstones had burned badly and that volunteers were waiting for smoke to clear before assessing the full extent, with hopes the site would be included in any official damage accounting.

Shallotte Middle School families were the most immediately inconvenienced group this week, with the district's early-dismissal notice arriving with little advance warning on a school morning. County officials have not identified any other schools or facilities affected so far.

What happens next

The Forest Service said Friday that containment lines were holding at 30 percent and that crews would continue building and reinforcing fire breaks through the weekend, with an investigation into the cause to follow once the active fire allows safe access to its origin point. Brunswick County has asked residents near the fire to monitor the sheriff's office's social media and mobile alert system rather than assume roads will stay open, and has reiterated that flying personal drones near the fire is illegal because it can ground aerial firefighting aircraft.

Local television coverage through the weekend showed the fire still producing visible flame and smoke, and county officials have not set a timetable for full containment. With extreme drought still gripping the inland half of the county and only scattered rain in the forecast, state officials have cautioned that conditions remain favorable for new ignitions, holdover or otherwise, in the same stretch of woods for the foreseeable future.