Myrtle Beach Fire

In case you haven't heard, 15,000+ acres have already burned in in North Myrtle Beach.
While it's not as windy here as it was yesterday, it's dry as hell. One of the news conferences just said that part of the fire are spreading underground, which I didn't even know was possible. The fire itself appears to be going back and forth, and the smoke is getting worse and worse.
They've evacuated several neighborhoods and closed schools, businesses, etc.
No fatalities, and that probably has to do with people here being pretty conscious of it.

 

That sucks. One of my favorite vacation spots. Used to go every summer as a kid.

 

In my three summers as a forest ranger, I was in four (relatively small) forest fires, and I can tell you that the underground fire is one scary mofo. It can burn for miles and then erupt like a tiny volcano. It can make a fire seem to be extinguished when it's not.

 

2 courses and seven random holes ;D

 

What is it burning in? Tunnels? Cable pipes?

 

Anything flammable that's underground -- root systems, buried leaves, organic matter in the soil. Most forests are eight-layer cakes of flammable material.

 

Oh, that makes sense.

I wonder if it could turn into a electrical fire if it was near civilization.

 

Never thought about it that way. Yikes.

Did you get to keep the hat?

 

Fixed.

(And here's hoping this gets solved soon. Love that part of the country.)

 

Underground railroad?

 

The worst forest fire in American history -- the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin -- had an element of ground-burn and underground fire that was truly apocalyptic. All the byproducts of decades of lumbering, buried and on the surface, went up.