In the annals of South Carolina wildfires, the early months of 2025 made history.
In Horry County, a fire in the Carolina Forest area located between Myrtle Beach and Conway, burned more than 2,000 acres over a period of months. The Table Rock Complex Fire, made up of a fire on Table Rock Mountain and another on Persimmon Ridge, burned in excess of 15,000 acres, becoming the largest mountain wildfire recorded in South Carolina, and even crossing into North Carolina.
Through carefully planned mobilization, firefighters from many departments came together to put them out.
“We have a very organized system in South Carolina, and it’s been in place a little over 20 years now; we call it the South Carolina Firefighters Mobilization Plan,” said Chief Billy Floyd of the North Myrtle Beach Fire Department. “It allows any fire department who wants to participate [to do so] — we keep an updated database of what resources we have, what’s available to be able to respond out. It’s on a voluntary basis, so obviously there are smaller departments or smaller communities around the state that may not be able to afford to send people or send a piece of fire apparatus several counties away that can be out of place for several days or weeks at a time.”
The system works particularly well during major events, Floyd said. For mutual aid, the City of North Myrtle Beach routinely works in partnership with Horry County, the City of Myrtle Beach, and the City of Conway, to name a few.
“If we end up with something that’s large-scale, there is a very high probability that the other municipalities, or the counties around us, are also dealing with something. So we’re not depleting our local resources and we’re able to pull resources from a part of the state that may not be impacted,” he said.
The mobilization efforts, especially for large scale events like forest fires and wildfires, require the focus of several different participants across multiple departments. The state-level mobilization plan divides the state into regions, each with its own coordinator.
“We’ll get an email or a text alert that there is an incident ongoing somewhere in the state and they made a specific request for what they need and if we are able to assist in filling that, we respond back with what we have to offer,” Floyd said.
Once the department accepts a request, the coordinator documents it with a tasking order, or work order.
As fire chief, he said, “I make that decision on what needs to go; I ensure that our city manager is aware of that, that we’re going to be sending a resource outside of the city limits, or outside of the county to be able to provide that assistance.”
In March 2025, the City of North Myrtle Beach fought two fires in the Carolina Forest area that required mobilization efforts from around the state. Floyd said that many Upstate fire agencies came to help, and were in the area for more than a week.
“Then a couple weeks later, they had the fire up there [in Greenville County], so we were able to return the favor back to them, by our agencies here on the coast being able to go up and provide that assistance,” he said. “That month really showed the power and reach of our mobilization, because we went from one end of the state to the other and were able to get enough resources on both of those scenes.“
The experience allowed for many lessons learned, Floyd said, both in coordination efforts and in addressing different types of terrain and the way fire will spread on them. North Myrtle Beach firefighters, for example, do not handle foothills and mountainous topography when fighting local fires.
Floyd said the coordination system is a source of reassurance for residents and municipalities, “to know that no matter the size of the department that covers your area, if something significant happens, there is a support system that is going to ensure that the citizens are getting the levels of service that they need in what could be a tremendous disaster or situation that is happening for that area that maybe they’ve never dealt with before.”
In the Upstate, Greenville County and the City of Greenville utilized mobilization efforts and mutual aid for the Table Rock Complex Fire, burning over 15,000 acres in March. The word “complex” was added to describe that the multiple, simultaneous fires were managed through a single command center.
Greenville also provided a public information officer to provide ongoing information on the wildfire’s status.
Photo: City of Greenville.
“The fire started in Greenville County and spread into other counties, and actually spread in North Carolina at one point as well,” said Chief Brian Horton of Greenville City Fire Department. “The fire was in our county, and our local fire departments in the area were becoming overwhelmed quickly. The initial incident commander on scene called local Emergency Management and asked for more help.”
Greenville County Emergency Management then requested additional resources from other fire departments in the county through mutual aid agreements, who began sending crews “almost immediately,” Horton said.
“That’s how mutual aid works with our inter-governmental agreements, even before it goes on up to the state level,” Horton said.
Once the fires became identified as a complex fire, firefighting efforts was unified under a single incident commander from the SC Forestry Commission. Horton noted that even early on, this was a fire that needed a designated communication officer, ensuring that all information was coming from one source working in the command post.
“The City of Greenville Communication department actually had one of their public information officers respond to the scene and serve in the role as communication officers for the fire side,” he said. “This individual was sending information out on The City of Greenville social media pages and on Greenville County Emergency Management pages. They also worked with other agencies in conjunction with the public information office from the Forestry Commission to ensure the same information was being put out to the public.”
Mobilizing for a large event happens almost immediately, Horton said.
“We sent six on-duty personnel and apparatuses straight up to the mountain as soon as we started getting the request for help. Likewise, other fire departments sent crews and apparatus throughout the county, not just us, but all the departments throughout Greenville County. Emergency Management had personnel there already,” he said. “This process began escalating quickly, within the first 15 to 30 minutes – the first crews on the scene started asking for more help, they started calling mutual aid. Within the next 30 minutes to an hour, more crews start arriving.”
Ultimately, firefighters from many parts of the state came to the Table Rock area, and in early April, the SC Forest Commission was able to announce the fires as fully contained.
“When help is needed, we’re going to send the help to ensure that all of our citizens are safe,” Horton said.
With a statewide mobilization plan in place, fire departments across South Carolina can tap into a network of resources, be it from personnel, to apparatus, to support from the local to the state level.
mountain wildfire to ever occur in South Carolina. Photo: City of Greenville.