DATE: Wednesday, July 23, 1997              TAG: 9707230663

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   34 lines

DISMAL SWAMP CALLS FOR HELP IN FIGHTING WILDFIRES

The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge has called in reinforcements to battle several wildfires ignited by lightning.

One helicopter and two tanker crews began assisting refuge managers last week, said refuge manager Lloyd Culp. Firefighting crews have been drawn from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service.

The helicopter will make daily flights to search for new fires. The copter is also able to transport water to douse the flames, Culp said.

The five fires near the refuge have been contained, partly because of recent afternoon thunderstorms. But those same storms have brought thousands of additional lightning strikes, raising the possibility that other fires may be smoldering within the refuge.

The swamp's peat soils ignite when they are as dry as they are now, Culp said. Ground fires may smolder for days or weeks after a lightning strike before bursting into flames when surface vegetation dries out.

Firefighters are trying to prevent such outbursts by hauling thousands of feet of fire hoses through the dense swamp and dousing the ground with water.

The swamp has suffered one casualty - one of the refuge's largest cypress trees, believed to be 400 to 500 years old - in the Pasquotank County, N.C., portion of the refuge.

The tree measured 12 feet in diameter and towered 100 to 120 feet above ground. A lightning bolt blew off the top half of the tree, igniting the ground at the tree's base.

The swamp is one of more than 500 refuges administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The 107,000-acre refuge, one of the largest on the East Coast, was established in 1974 to protect the swamp's ecosystem.

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