There were over 100 wildfires in South Carolina Saturday and Sunday, March 1-2, 2025. (Photo courtesy of South Carolina Forestry Commission)
Residents of a Myrtle Beach area community threatened by a weekend wildfire can return home as firefighters begin to get the blaze under control.
The 1,600-acre Carolina Forest fire that led to hundreds of evacuations in Horry County is 30% contained as of Monday morning, according to the State Forestry Commission.
While the fire is widespread, no one has been injured and no homes destroyed, according to Horry County Fire Department spokesperson Tony Casey. He said property damage has been minimal, such as melted fences and siding on a house.
After a massive flare up of more than 100 wildfires over the weekend, encompassing thousands of acres, the South Carolina Forestry Commission says the Carolina Forest Fire is one of only three that remain burning.
“We’re in great shape,” Doug Wood, spokesperson for the forestry commission, told the SC Daily Gazette.
More than 175 wildfires burned across Horry, Spartanburg, Oconee, Union and Pickens Counties, impacting more than 4,200 acres, according to the State Fire Marshal. In response, Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency Sunday.
McMaster’s declaration came a day after the forestry commission issued a statewide outdoor burn ban.
“This State of Emergency ensures that our first responders, who are working tirelessly and risking their lives to protect our communities from these wildfires, have the resources they need,” McMaster said in a statement.
Both the ban and the emergency declaration remain in place. Anyone caught burning amid the ban could face criminal charges, according to the governor’s office.
The Carolina Forest fire comes more than 15 years after a small burn took a turn for the worse in the same region.
In April 2009, a yard debris burn near Conway spread into a wildfire that destroyed 76 homes and did $42 million in property damage across Horry County. Firefighters responded and thought the fire, commonly known as the Highway 31 Fire, had been extinguished but it reignited and went on to cover more than 19,000 acres.
At any given time, the state may have five to 10 wildfires burning, Wood said. But the scale of the past weekend’s outburst is something Wood can’t recall in recent history.
“It hasn’t happened in a long time,” Wood said.
The Forestry Commission is the lead responder when a wildfire breaks out across 13 million of the state’s roughly 20 million-acre land mass. With so many fires ablaze at once, it strained the state’s firefighting capacity, according to the agency.
To combat the flames at Carolina Forest, the state Army National Guard has sent blackhawk helicopters to dump buckets carrying 600 gallons of water. Additionally, the state forest commission, state Department of Natural Resources and the state Emergency Management Division are working alongside numerous local fire departments.
“Every fire department within 50 miles has been out here helping us,” Wood said.
Officials have yet to determine the cause of the Carolina Forest fire, as well as the source of other fires that burned over the weekend, Wood said.
South Carolina’s wildfire season lasts from January to April, with March usually marking the peak.