Monday morning’s Pinnacle Mountain fire report

The wildfire that escaped a small portion of the northern perimeter late Saturday and ran up Rocky Mountain yesterday surrounded the hill Sunday night. The latest reports indicate the fire is moving northwest toward Buzzard Mountain, but the containment strategy of constructing hand lines around the area remains the same. According to the state Commission of Forestry, the fire grew 244 acres overnight, and the containment area, which does not include the spread toward Buzzard Mountain, now encompasses more than 5,400 acres. Incident command officials say the fire remains at 35 percent containment. Nearly half of the 89 hand crew members on the mountain – the largest count to date – are devoted just to the northern division focusing on this section of the breached line. The western and southwestern firelines are the best contained after successful burnouts. Most other personnel are concentrating their efforts on reinforcing and improving the lines on all other sides of the containment area. One Black Hawk and two Chinook helicopters continue to drop water on hot spots today, and a Cessna 401 airplane will be conducting reconnaissance all day, providing ground crews with aerial observations.

Evacuation update

Residents who were asked to evacuate Thursday because of the large-scale burnout may return to their homes beginning at noon today. Officials made the call to lift the evacuation this morning after evaluating the progress of containment efforts on the eastern side of the fire.

Weather

On-scene incident meteorologist Mike Proud says winds will be very low today; however, the greatest cause for concern weather-wise will be extremely low humidity between 13 and 17 percent.

Facts & figures

According to financial records being kept on the scene, the total cost of the incident, including personnel, time and resources has exceeded $1.6 million. The South Carolina National Guard reported Monday morning it had dropped more than 1 million gallons of water on the Pinnacle Mountain wildfire since air support operations began more than a week ago.

The Pinnacle Mountain Fire began Wednesday, Nov. 9 and was caused by an escaped campfire. Efforts to control this fire have involved numerous local, state and federal agencies, with hundreds of personnel assigned to the incident so far.