Stecoah – Despite greenup being well under way in the woods, the spring fire season still lingers.
Graham County 911 dispatchers received a report of a brush fire at Locust Cove in the Stecoah area Saturday, shortly before 8:30 p.m.
Firefighters with the N.C. Forest Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Stecoah Volunteer Fire Department responded. The fire was burning between Locust Cove Road and Green Cemetery on private property.
The fire appeared to have been intentionally set along a ridge top.
Firefighters were hampered in their suppression efforts by dense thickets of laurel and rhododendron, but crews managed to contain the fire and cap it at roughly eight acres of damage around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning.