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Over a week after the Matts Creek Fire was fully contained, restoration and monitoring work continues in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest.
The fire was first reported on Nov 12, in the James River Face Wilderness, and grew to 11,020 acres before 100% containment was achieved on Nov 27.
Currently, crews are working on repairing areas of the forest damaged in the firefighting efforts.
“They’re still in that fire suppression repair phase, which is at the end. The fire’s contained, but the work is not yet done. They have to repair the fire lines and the damage that the fire caused,” Karen Miranda, public information officer for the fire, told The News-Gazette.
Though officials are confident in the containment lines, some burning or smoking may continue in the interior of the fire area.
“We had a pretty good rainstorm that put the damper on most of it, and there was still some smoking and smoldering after that, but the upper layers of the leaf litter have dried out, so if you were walking in the area now, you would be walking on crunchy leaves,” Miranda explained. “And there is still a possibility that those leaves could burn.”
“Underneath that, though, the soil’s still wet, so we don’t expect the fire to spread at all. If there is any burning that continues it’ll be in that leaf litter and the dried fallen leaves,” she said.
Regardless, Miranda emphasized that the fire poses no more risk to the community.
“The 100% containment indicates that there’s a line around the fire that they feel is strong enough that it would hold, regardless of anything that burns on the interior, so there’s no danger left to the community from fire spread,” she said.
At its peak, 380 firefighters and support staff were working on the fire. While the majority of those have been demobilized, there is still a management team assigned to the area.
“There’s still a small fire management team assigned known as a type four team so its composed of local fire managers, and there are still two hand crews on the fire. One is from Montana and one is from California, so those are 20 people each,” Miranda said.
Officials are looking toward the fire’s longterm impact on the forest.
“At this point they just brought on a burned area response team, which is a team of three specialists that are looking at the impacts of the vegetation on the ground and also the soil itself, to look at any potential flood impacts or erosion that might be expected in the coming months,” Miranda explained.
This work will continue for the next few weeks.
“They have 14 days to do all the ground assessments. They use satellite imagery and they also validate it by going out on the ground, and they come up with a plan that they provide to the Forest Service,” she said.
“If they believe there are any steps that need to be taken to prevent, erosion mostly, or anything that might impact the surrounding community, they would be projecting that out and planning steps to mitigate or prevent that,” she said.
The investigation into the cause of the fire is also ongoing.
“Forest law enforcement officers are doing that. Just like any type of investigation, they need to interview people and track down all the evidence that they might have,” said Miranda.
They are expected to file a report in around two weeks.
“You could expect something mid-December, in terms of either an announcement that they did determine the cause, or perhaps that they haven’t found a cause,” Miranda said. “Sometimes they don’t, so they leave the investigation open in case there should be more information that is coming in.”
While the investigation is still open, Miranda said that current evidence indicates that it was likely human caused.
“At this point, as I think I indicated, it does not appear that it was caused by lightning. There was no lightning in the area at the time, so we don’t think it was naturally caused,” she said.
“The other alternative is that it was human caused, but they have not determined the exact cause yet or who may have been involved. They do know that it was close to the Appalachian recreation trail.”
While the Matts Creek fire has been contained, burn bans remain in effect in the National Forest.
“There’s still a drought in Virginia, so there is still a fire ban on in this area. It is possible that new fires could start,” said Miranda. “So even though this fire’s contained, there is still a fire restriction, so that no one should have any open fires right now, because it is so dry.”
Campfires are allowed within metal or concrete fire pits in developed Forest Service recreation sites.
More information and updates on fire restrictions can be found on the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest Facebook page, or on its website at https://www.fs.usda.gov/ main/gwj.
