Mother Nature ‘didn’t win’ after all: Fire continues to burn on Lake Norman island
Much to the surprise of firefighters, a blaze thought to have been doused by thunderstorms earlier this week continued to burn on a Lake Norman island Thursday.
And Huntersville Fire Department officials explained why they’ve decided to let it keep burning, while issuing a warning to boaters.
“Whelp, looks like mother-nature didn’t win as we had hoped, and the fire on Lynch Island continues, albeit a smaller fire,” the department posted on Twitter late Wednesday.
The department included a photo of smoke rising from the island during daylight.
Just after sunrise Tuesday, the department released other photos on Twitter of billowing smoke from the island that could be seen for miles.
Lynch Island is located at the southern end of the 520-mile lake.
The island is off Henry Lane, which is off N.C. 73 and extends along a Lake Norman peninsula.
Google Maps identifies a beach at the southern tip of the island as Hammock Beach.
Huntersville firefighters originally expected the fire to burn throughout Tuesday, but a morning thunderstorm appeared to have doused the remaining flames, according to fire department tweets.
“Mother-nature came through for us,” the department said on Twitter later Tuesday, “… that quick thunderstorm darkened the fire significantly.”
Not so, the department tweeted Wednesday night.
“We will continue our position of NOT fighting the fire on the island,” department officials tweeted.
“Our thought process of allowing this particular fire to burn is similar to that of a controlled burn in a state/national park,” the department said in a tweet. “This fire will help burn out the underbrush and reduce chances for future fires from boaters who (illegally) burn camp/cooking fires on the island.
Letting the fire burn also “will help fertilize the soil after the ash is absorbed into it,” officials said. “We see it as a win ... but also as a caution that many of the fires on our LKN islands are man-made and from careless, reckless decision.”
Fire officials have not released a suspected cause of the fire.
Bill Suthard, public information officer for the Huntersville Fire Department, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message from The Charlotte Observer on Thursday regarding the cause of the latest fire and if it’s related to the earlier one.
Duke Energy rules for LKN islands
Lake Norman has 96 islands, or areas that remained above water when the lake was created in 1963, according to Lake Norman Wildlife Conservationists, a chapter of the North Carolina Wildlife Federation.
Duke Energy owns the islands, which “are available for day-use public recreation,” spokesman Ben Williamson said in an email. “This is the policy at our other reservoirs as well.”
The islands cannot be used from sunset to sunrise, he said.
Permanent structures are prohibited, as are fires or littering “of any kind,” he said. Vegetation can’t be removed, he added.
Law enforcement is authorized to enforce those policies under N.C. and S.C. laws, according to Williamson.
This story was originally published June 16, 2022 at 1:30 PM.