Beaufort-area firefighters headed upstate to help battle raging Myrtle Beach wildfires
A crew from the City of Beaufort/ Town of Port Royal Fire Department is helping contain the spread of massive wildfires in the Myrtle Beach area while other local agencies are waiting at the ready.
The three-person crew, made up of lieutenant and paramedic Matt Domanowski, engineer and AEMT Alec Rowe as well as firefighter and EMT Josh Nicoletta, left the Beaufort area Monday morning for Horry County, where the state’s largest fire covered over 2,000 acres and blanketed the Carolina Forest area in heavy smoke.
Officials at the South Carolina Forestry Commission said the fire was 30% contained as of Tuesday morning. Lighter winds Monday assisted first responders’ efforts to suppress the blazes, and both Carolinas awaited mid-week rainstorms that could help even more.
The crew from Beaufort/Port Royal would work as a “strike team,” protecting a specific neighborhood from the fires impeding on that area, said Deputy Chief of Administration Ross Vezin. They would work alongside other first responders from North Charleston, Claredon and Horry counties.
“It’s much different, especially for us in the City of Beaufort,” Vezin said of his crew’s efforts in Horry County. “We don’t deal with many brush fires or wildfires, so it is different, and our teams will team up with other crews around the state.”
Organized through the state’s Firefighter Mobilization plan, crews are typically sent with enough supplies to last seven days. If assistance is needed for longer, “we’ll swap them out and get a fresh crew up there,” Vezin said.
Assistance teams were on standby at Hilton Head Island Fire Rescue and the Bluffton Township Fire District. If sent to the Myrtle Beach area, both fire stations would utilize regular fire engines as well as specialized “brush trucks,” smaller vehicles that are built for rough terrain.
After voluntary evacuations over the weekend, residents from dozens of neighborhoods in the Myrtle Beach area returned home Sunday. Although the inferno had edged up to several residential areas, no homes had been destroyed as of Tuesday morning, according to Horry County Fire Rescue.
Gov. Henry McMaster issued a state of emergency Sunday due to the ongoing wildfires and dry, windy conditions across the state. South Carolina remained under a burn ban, issued Saturday, which prohibited all outdoor burning, prescribed burning and campfires.
“That means you can and will go to jail for starting a fire outdoors in South Carolina. Period,” McMaster said in a statement.
This story was originally published March 4, 2025 at 1:07 PM.
