Last Updated on April 11, 2026 5:15 pm
The debris left behind by Hurricane Helene has fundamentally changed the wildfire landscape of western North Carolina — and according to state forest officials, the danger isn’t going away anytime soon.
“Probably for the next 10, if not 20 years, this is going to be the new normal for western North Carolina anytime they hit a dry patch,” Philip Jackson, public information officer with the North Carolina Forest Service, said in published reports…