Hiwassee Dam – Richard Foster went through a painstaking process trying to find the perfect parcel of land in the mountains of Cherokee County.
The 54-year-old immigrant from northern Wales in the United Kingdom said he canceled numerous real estate contracts during the pursuit of his own dream property, before finally settling on a 7-plus-acre tract off Upper Bear Paw Road in 2020. The ashes of Foster’s late wife, Peggy, are buried on the property, and he knows he will one day have to find a spot for the future remains of Murphy, the aptly named rescue dog he adopted during a visit here 14 years ago.
Ash has become a point of great frustration for Foster these days, though, after a portion of his land was charred by a Feb. 11 fire that started from manmade materials being burned on neighboring land near his property line.
“(Eventually) it’s just going to be me and the land, you see,” Foster said.
“So I try to take care of it, because it’s going to have to take care of me, but I haven’t been able to protect it from violent assault. It’s been a body blow for me because this was our little piece of paradise out here.”
‘Slapped in the face’
The N.C. Forest Service incident report cited Kenneth Waggoner, owner of Mountain Power Electric in Murphy, as receiving a warning ticket on March 9 for “careless” debris burning of manmade materials. The fire damaged about six-tenths of an acre.
Foster said learning that Waggoner had only received a warning ticket felt like being “slapped in the face” by the state. He heard the materials being unloaded on the afternoon of the fire – something he said had been happening at least once a month on an ongoing basis – and was afraid the fire might get out due to the wind and other conditions.
“He has his guys drop off all sorts of waste from their jobs, pallets, wiring, panels, things that are not combustible, and they pour old motor oil all over the pile,” Foster said. “So they’re setting that on top of it, lighting it and they just drive off.
“It could’ve been much much worse if I hadn’t been here and I wasn’t paying attention, because to some extent this was predictable. For sure, it would’ve torched the whole top of my property, probably would’ve come down part way toward the buildings and would’ve gone over the ridge into the (neighbor’s) property.”
Hazardous conditions
Brush fires are a recurring problem in Cherokee County. The Hiwassee Dam Volunteer Fire Department noted current hazardous burning conditions in a post on their Facebook page Monday afternoon, while Cherokee County Emergency Management also sent out a “high fire danger” notice.
“Weather conditions remain dangerous for outside burning,” the post states. “Low humidity and brisk winds mean fires can quickly get out of control. Please postpone burning.”
Shortly before 2 p.m. Monday, Cherokee County Emergency Management received a call reporting a brush fire off of Johnson Creek Road.
Phillip Raby, Cherokee County ranger with the N.C. Forest Service, said individuals should pay attention to burn advisories, obtain a burn permit and monitor weather conditions, such as wind and higher temperatures. Individuals can call the Forest Service to ask whether not a particular day is safe for burning.
“Anybody who’s wanting to burn any debris of any sort, remember that the only debris they can burn is organic,” Raby said. “It’s gotta be something like sticks, leaves, that type of stuff. Manmade substance is illegal; we can’t be burning that.”
Violators can be fined up to $10,000 or more per incident, per day in serious cases of burning manmade materials.
Raby added that it is important to not leave fires unattended, put a fire break around what is being burned, and have a way of suppressing the fire like water and a rake.
“If they put their burn piles at the bottom of a slope, it’s not a good place, because fire runs uphill,” Raby said.
‘What can you do?’
Foster said he is grateful for the response by the Hiwassee Dam department and other first responders, who were on the scene within about 10 minutes of his emergency call and got water on the section of the fire most likely to head down the slope toward his buildings. He added that firefighters told him it was the third brush fire they had responded to in two days.
Foster said he is surprised and disappointed that Waggoner never reached out to him concerning the incident.
“If I did something like that to a neighbor’s property, I’d be beside myself with guilt and trying to make it up,” Foster said. “You can’t fix it, but what can you do?
“Even if it’s something simple like (asking), ‘Can I get my guys out here to help you clean it up?’ ... Nothing, not one word.”
Calls to Waggoner were not returned before the Cherokee Scout’s press time Tuesday.
“It sounds like something I have to pursue with the assistance of an attorney,” Foster said. “I haven’t found anyone in town who’s interested in helping me.”
‘The right way’
Foster said the situation is especially disheartening because he’s always tried to do things “the right way,” including the eight-year process he had to go through to get a green card. He became a U.S. citizen in 2008.
Foster lived in Long Island, N.Y., and central Florida before finally moving to his dream destination in Cherokee County.
“I’m sure I had the world’s record for the number of contracts canceled for one reason or another,” Foster said. “Nothing (felt) right. Then I came here and thought, ‘Wow, what a fabulous piece of property.’ ”
Although Foster has built some trails along portions of his property, he intended to leave the burned portion of the land as natural as possible. He is no longer sure what he’ll do with it.
“I wanted this area to be for the deer and the coyotes, not for humans,” Foster said. “Imagine standing here at 3 o’clock in the morning, the moonlight is coming down on the snow, and you see this coyote walk across this (downed tree trunk).
“That doesn’t happen where I grew up, so to have that on your own property is fantastic. And now I’m looking at this, and I’m going to have to clean this up.”