Linda Dunlap spoke with WRAL News from the comfort of her home in Carthage, a city in Moore County, on Sunday. Her mind, however, was in Shallotte.
“It looks like a war zone,” Dunlap said. “I mean, it is just decimated.”
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Dunlap and a friend took a trip to her Brunswick County vacation home on Friday, unaware of what was coming.
“My friend went out and looked out the back door, and it was getting smoky,” Dunlap said. “She said, ‘Linda, all those people in the back, they're running back and forth to their cars.’”
Dunlap’s neighbors were evacuating. A now 300-acre wildfire had reached the edge of their neighborhood. Brunswick County officials say the large wildfire began on Friday near Old Georgetown and Hale Swamp roads in the Shallotte area.
“We started putting stuff in the car, and at this point, you could feel the heat from the fire, and the ash was just raining down on us,” Dunlap described.
They drove about 35 miles away to Whiteville, spent the night there, and got up early the next morning to head back to what was left of Shallotte.
“The traffic circle was on fire that morning,” Dunlap said.
She saw pine trees 100 feet tall alongside the road in flames.
When asked how she was feeling at that moment, Dunlap said one word came to mind: “Devastated.”
Dunlap's neighborhood and the tight knit community of people that live there were saved, in part, by the direction of the wind.
Dunlap gives the majority of the credit to the North Carolina Forest Service, all 19 Brunswick County fire departments and crews from New Hanover County, Horry County, South Carolina and the City of Wilmington. All of them worked tirelessly to battle the flames.
“There were about six fire trucks parked pointing out, and all of those firemen were laid in those trucks sleeping,” Dunlap said. “I felt, oh my gosh, so thankful to you guys.”
One firefighter needed treatment on Saturday, but no one else was injured or has died.
The fire damaged one commercial storage building, a residential storage building, and several commercial work trucks and heavy equipment.
By Sunday morning, local roads had reopened, and evacuation orders had been lifted, allowing residents to return to their homes.