Another one:
^^
The hand gestures on this guy.
In addition, there are lots of creeks and small rivers in this area that act as natural fire lines. There is definitely some "skipping" across these small bodies of water due to steep canyon winds but like you said rain is on its way (as it always is around these parts). This will be nothing like a Cali or Canadian wildfire, it will be a few thousand acres and not hundreds of thousands of acres.They're getting a lot of rain next week starting Sunday, so thankfully this shouldn't last too long, or blow up into anything close to the LA fires.
I spent a lot of time on the NC coast from 2011-2013. During a good part of that time, there was daily heavy smoke in the air from forest fires farther inland. Sometimes mild, sometimes very heavy and dense, but almost always at least the smell of smoke in the air.Spring fires in the southeast are normal. They dry out about Feb/Mar and it burns till summer storms come in. Lot of blowdown from Helene is on in the ground leading to heavier fuel loadings (eg more active fire).