This article is re -publish of The conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Numerous wildfires broke out in early March 2025 across North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia as strong winds, abnormally dry conditions, and low humidity combined to put on the flames and spread.
The fires followed a year of sparkling in the Carolinas, from a flash drought during the summer to extreme hurricane flooding in September, and then back to drought. Storms on March 5, 2025, helped to burn many of the fires, but the Southeast fire season begins first. Lauren Lowman and Nick Corak, experts at Wake Forest University, put the fires and the dry winter of the region into context.
Why did the Carolinas see so many wildfires?
Most of North and South Carolina has been abnormally dry or in moderate drought since at least November 2024.
If the land and vegetation are so dry, it is just a lightning strike or a man -made fire and wind to start a wildfire.
Hurricanes flooded the region in late summer 2024, but before that, the Carolinas experienced a flash drought.
Flash droughts are extreme droughts that develop rapidly due to a lack of precipitation and dry conditions in the atmosphere. When the atmosphere is dry, it draws water from the vegetation and soils, causing the surface to dry out.
In August and September, Tropical Storm Debby and Hurricane Helene caused extensive flooding in the two states, but the Carolinas received little rainfall in the following months, which again allowed winter 2025 to dry abnormally.
How unusual are fires like this in the region?
Fires are historically fairly common in the Carolinas. It is a natural part of the landscape, and many ecosystems have developed to depend on it.
Meat -eating plants such as Venus fly and jar plants rely on regular fire activity to remove shrubs and other plants that would grow over them and block the light. Even some wild animals depend on fire for their habitats and for food from the mixture of indigenous plants that regrow after a fire.