TRYON, N.C. — The downed power line that sparked a wildfire here that ultimately burned more than 600 acres in western North Carolina fell a couple hundred feet from where U.S. 176 has abruptly ended since Hurricane Helene washed away a section of roadway.

Once sparked, the fire roared across the southern side of the mountain, devouring the brittle, twisted kudzu branches that blanket the forest floor, and swallowing up debris left behind from the devastating hurricane.

Over an especially dry winter, the understory has turned into prime kindling.

And so, for a second time in six months, residents of the small town just over the South Carolina border have found themselves battling a natural phenomenon intensified by human influences.

The wildfire is yet another reminder there’s no space absolutely safe from the elements, said Steven Siler, a firefighter with the Tryon Fire Department who grew up in Stone Mountain. Broader awareness of that reality is taking hold after several years of increasingly extreme weather in a region many once saw as a climate refuge.

“There’s a realization that things have been brought to our door,” he said. “We don’t control nature.”

More than 2,200 acres have burned in North Carolina across 501 fires in March alone, with fires cropping up from the mountains to the coast, according to the N.C. Forest Service’s wildfire reports. In South Carolina, the governor declared a state of emergency after a blaze forced evacuations in Horry County near Myrtle Beach.

Georgia hasn’t been spared: Nearly 2,600 acres have burned since March 1, according to Wendy Burnett with the Georgia Forestry Commission.

All three Southern states are dealing with similar conditions that have worsened the normal spring fire season. Rainfall deficits date back to December, and a weak La Nina weather pattern coming off the Pacific Ocean has led to warmer temperatures.

Midweek rainfall across all three states was a welcome respite, but the rain isn’t expected to be enough to quench the fire risk because the ground is still so parched. On Friday, the National Weather Service was continuing to advise against outdoor burning in North and Central Georgia.

“Unless we get significant rain, it dries up incredibly fast,” Burnett said.

Tryon, N.C., is a small town, with just more than 1,500 residents. A statue of Morris — a white, red and black toy horse made by local toy makers a century ago — stands on a downtown corner. Artists and writers have long been drawn to the town, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose poem about banana splits from “dear old Misseldine’s,” a local drugstore, hangs from a plaque downtown.

Nina Simone hailed from Tryon, and a large mural of the jazz singer is painted on the side of a building nearby.

The wildfire was a few miles northwest and was 91% contained by Wednesday, five days after it started. A slight smoky smell lingered and a “local traffic only” sign blocked outsiders from driving down U.S. 176.

Judy Banks returned to her home Tuesday after evacuating with her rescue dog, Tinkerbelle, and an orange tabby cat named Toby Tyler. Friends advised her to take irreplaceable items with her, but Banks said she left with just the pets, her will, a power of attorney and clothes for two days.

Banks lives at the base of Warrior Mountain, about 3 miles from where the fire sparked. Before she left Sunday, all she could see from her side of the mountain was smoke that hung heavy in the air and made it hard to breathe. She was optimistic the fire wouldn’t reach her house — it didn’t get closer than a mile or so — but she left because of the smoke.

Before she left, fire truck after fire truck had come through with sirens blazing, she said. There was only one way in on U.S. 176, because part of the roadway connecting Tryon with nearby Saluda washed away during Helene. Helicopters dropping buckets of water hovered overhead.

Banks, a school speech therapist before she retired, moved to Tryon in 1997 from the northeast Charlotte suburbs looking for a quieter pace. While wildfires are common in western North Carolina, this is the first one that’s come close to her.

She had started worrying about the blaze the instant she learned about it Saturday. Banks knew the kudzu, dormant this time of year, would catch fire fast and send flames shooting down the lengths of its vines. As in Georgia, the invasive plant dubbed the “mile-a-minute” vine runs wild. That, combined with trees felled by Helene littering the forest floor, didn’t bode well, Banks said.

“There’s a lot more debris on the ground than normal,” she said. “It’s amazing how many trees went down.”

She drove down U.S. 176 on Thursday for the first time since the fire started, taking a reporter as far as the road goes. Yellow caution tape wrapped around mailboxes and fluttered in the wind, a sign that emergency officials had visited a home to let them know about the evacuation order. The charred kudzu branches snaked across the sooty ground.

“This is all really bad,” Banks said of blackened tree trunks standing tall just feet away from homes. “It’s just scoured.”

U.S. 176 runs through the valley. Up high on the mountainside opposite where the fire blazed, Banks pointed out the site of a mudslide that happened after nearly 3 feet of rain fell a few years ago. It sat right in the middle of the fire’s path.

Ashley Menetre, who runs an artisanal market in downtown Tryon, lives on the mountain across from the fire and had a view of it. She moved to the town from Fayetteville, Georgia, in 2013. She was, like Banks, looking for a quieter pace of life.

People and small-business owners like herself are still trying to recover from Helene, she said. The storm disrupted the valuable fall tourist season on top of causing costly destruction. News of the wildfire has rattled people again.

“I think the whole town was nervous,” Menetre said.

Menetre used to live on the side of the valley that caught fire. She was relieved to be watching it from a distance. Still, she said, it was eerie to see the bright red flames illuminating the dark night sky.

Siler, the firefighter, said everyone knew the conditions were ripe for a fire — almost a matter of when, not if. The forests around Tryon haven’t seen a burn in 20 or more years, he said. There’s a lot of resistance to controlled burns from private property owners.

The night before it started, the fire department hosted a chili cook-off fundraiser, he said. Spirits were high. Wind knocked over the power line around 1 p.m. the next day. Local crews responded immediately, and within a few hours emergency responders from 20 different departments in North and South Carolina had joined them.

Siler said in recent years he’s noticed crews responding from farther away because closer departments are battling their own blazes. Fire departments are stretched thin, he said.

The goal was to keep the fire in the valley. Crews started back burns along the edge of the fire to keep it from spreading and were ultimately successful.

Firefighters had trekked through the mountains to rescue people after Helene, and that gave them a familiarity with where trees were downed and the areas that were washed out, he said. All that knowledge helped fight this blaze.

Siler has fought fires out West before, where the wildfire risk is greater than in Southern states. The oaks and hardwoods in the Appalachian Mountains burn more slowly, which makes firefighting here a little bit easier. But the mountainous terrain can make it treacherous, and roads and homes aren’t designed with fire protection in mind, he said. It can be hard to get emergency vehicles up the narrow roads that wind along cliffsides.

He expects conditions on the East Coast to worsen and worries that, over time, insurers will pull back.

It’s only recently, he said, that people are starting to recognize the risk is only going to increase. Many moved to the area to escape extreme weather elsewhere. Others have lived in the mountains all their lives and have just never seen conditions like they’re facing now.

“A lot of them are saying, ‘I’ve never had to think about this before,’” Siler said.

Now, they’ll have to make plans.

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