Members of the South Carolina Forestry Commission work to put out the Carolina Forest fire that started on Saturday, March 1. (Photo courtesy of South Carolina Forest Commision)
COLUMBIA— A three-person team leading wildfire prevention education throughout South Carolina may be in jeopardy at a time when wildfire risks are increasing.
The Forestry Commission requested $345,000 in the 2025-26 state budget to cover the salaries and benefits of three wildfire protection coordinators who have been paid through federal grants since 2014. Changes in 2023 to the U.S. Forest Service’s hazard mitigation program put the positions at risk, and a previously awarded grant will run out this summer, according to the state agency.
Losing the team “reduces the ability to implement successful prevention campaigns and assist communities with wildfire mitigation projects,” Scott Phillips, the commission’s head forester, told a Senate subcommittee last week. That “results in more large wildfires, more damaged homes, more damaged property.”
The team works with neighborhood groups to assess wildfire risks to their homes and recommend ways to reduce the likelihood of stray embers igniting and spreading an inferno, such as using stone instead of pine straw for mulch, keeping gutters clear, and using fire-resistant plants for landscaping. Their work includes coordinating with homeowner associations to conduct workshops.
The unit is also the state liaison for the National Fire Prevention Association’s Firewise USA program. More than 30 South Carolina communities are deemed Firewise, a nationally recognized stamp of approval meaning homeowners have taken steps to reduce their wildfire risks.
The number will be closer to 40 once the paperwork goes through, said Drake Carroll, who leads the wildfire mitigation unit.
Almost half of those neighborhoods are in wildfire prone Horry County, he said.
The heart of South Carolina’s Grand Strand tourism mecca is the fastest-growing county in one of the nation’s fastest-growing states. Phillips noted it’s also home to some of the most flammable topography in the Southeast, with its pine forests, grasslands, and elliptical depressions called Carolina Bays where fire can smolder underground for days.
As people continue to move in, wildfire risks will increase, along with the need to educate residents on what they can do to protect their property, Phillips said.
“Their house is being built next to the woods and that increases wildfire risks as people move into the area,” he said.
During the first weekend of March, more than 175 wildfires flared up in Horry, Spartanburg, Oconee, Union and Pickens counties, impacting more than 4,200 acres total, according to the State Fire Marshal.
But the biggest, at more than 2,000 acres, was in Carolina Forest, a massive and still-growing development between Myrtle Beach and Conway built in and around a forest.
As of Monday, the fire in that forest still burned but was 75% contained, according to the Forestry Commission.
No lives or homes were lost in the blaze, which highlights the effectiveness of the prevention program, Phillips said.
“You can see the difference in the effects of the fire just because of the practices put into place,” he said.
Compare this month’s Carolina Forest fire to what happened nearby in 2009, when a backyard debris fire turned into the worst wildfire in state history. No one died in that fire either, but the blaze ultimately consumed more than 19,000 acres, destroying 76 homes and damaging nearly 100 others as softball size embers landing ahead of the wall of flames ignited pine straw landscaping and vinyl siding.
As in 2009, firefighters say the Carolina Forest fire originated from a backyard debris burn that got out of control. A 40-year-old Myrtle Beach woman was arrested March 6 on two charges related to “not taking the proper precautions” to prevent it from spreading from her firepit, according to the Forestry Commission.
Both charges carry a punishment of up to 30 days in jail. Her attorney is seeking a dismissal of both. Alexandra Bialousow is being scapegoated, Johnny McCoy said, who says his client doused the initial fire within the walls of a concrete firepit with a hose.
‘Start ringing’
Historically, a community’s risk of wildfire doesn’t automatically mean residents do something about it, Carroll said. More than 640 communities in South Carolina are rated as “high to extreme risk” of wildfire, while roughly a third of those have completed protection plans with the state, he said.
It usually takes a massive fire like the one in Carolina Forest to scare residents into action. “My phone’s going to start ringing pretty hard,” he said.
But those calls come as he’s worried about the team’s continued existence after the federal grants shifted from guaranteed to competitive in 2023, when the U.S. Forest Service began discouraging using the grant to fund salaries. His colleagues in other Southeastern states have already seen their grants dry up.
The state spending plan approved by the House last week provided $135,000 of the $345,000 requested — enough to fund Carroll’s job but not his two team members.
The $135,000 was part of about $1.2 million in additional money the House approved for the Forestry Commission in the coming year, boosting the agency’s budget to almost $35 million. One-time expenses approved in the plan include $550,000 for technology upgrades.
But full funding for the team is a top priority for the agency, Phillips told senators who are crafting that chamber’s budget proposal.
The Senate’s budget plan is still weeks away. Legislators likely won’t finalize their spending package until June.
Asked why the budget plan approved last week didn’t cover the whole team, the House subcommittee chairman who handles the Forestry Commission budget said legislators can’t cover every request. Agencies’ funding requests always exceed available money, said Rep. Leon Stavrinakis, D-Charleston.
“We do the best we can in general,” he said.
SC Daily Gazette Editor Seanna Adcox contributed to this article.