The epidemic of hundreds of wildfires in every corner of the state served as a warning that drought could expand the spring and fall fire seasons into one long year of risk, emergency officials said Monday.

"Right now, we could have a fire season year-round," said Tom Collins, eastern branch manager for the N.C. Division of Emergency Management.

Normally, the spring season doesn't begin until March. But in a single weekend, 10,100 acres -- more than half the acreage normally torched in an an entire year -- were burned.

"We probably had fires in every county in the state," Collins said. "I've seen days in the western part of the state where we just had fires everywhere, but this time it was statewide.

"It just had to be drought-related."

Propelled by strong winds, more than 300 wildfires flared across the state Sunday. By Monday, the winds had died, but several small fires and three larger blazes were still burning, state fire officials said. The last major fires, each about 2,000 acres, were in Halifax, Tyrrell and Camden counties.

For months, emergency officials have been talking about the effects of drought on the fire seasons, planning as best they can and relying on mutual aid agreements between emergency response agencies across the state and pacts with other states, Collins said. But an extreme fire season such as those suffered recently in Georgia and Florida could make it harder for North Carolina firefighters to find help the next time wildfires strike.

Sunday's windstorm -- with blasts of unusually dry air exceeding 80 mph in the mountains and more than 40 mph in much of the rest of the state -- would have caused an unusual number of fires even without a drought, said Jim Prevette, fire chief for the N.C. Division of Forest Resources. Many were ignited by power lines knocked down by wind-blown trees.

Drought is covering the Southeast. That adds to the long-range threat, because neighboring states that could send help might have their own fires -- as Virginia and South Carolina did Sunday.

"We called them, but they were busy, too," Prevette said.

Had winds continued Monday, Tennessee was prepared to send crews and North Carolina might have had to ask more distant states for help, he said.

"We ran out of resources real quick, and the fire departments were stretched real thin," he said. "If the wind had kept blowing, we'd be calling for outside resources, because of the fatigue factor."

State officials don't have a precise count, but they think only a handful of the 70 structures destroyed Sunday were homes. Fire crews used tactics such as plowing up yards to protect nearly 900 homes statewide, officials said.

After fire, deep relief

There were no fire-related deaths reported, Brian R. Haines, spokesman for the N.C. Division of Forest Resources, said late Monday afternoon. said late Monday afternoon. A woman was killed Sunday near New Bern when a wind-felled tree limb smashed through the windshield of the car she was riding in.

Across the state Monday, people surveyed still-smoking yards and marveled that their houses were standing. Exhausted fire crews soaked the last hot spots.

In Camden County, near the Virginia border in northeastern North Carolina, one of the largest fires was still generating clouds of smoke so thick that schools had to open two hours late, County Manager Randy Woodruff said.

"It's a clear sunny day, and you can head into heavy dense smoke that is like fog," he said.

In parts of Halifax County, evidence of fire was everywhere: blackened roadsides, trees scorched to their lower branches, the faint whiff of wood smoke that came and went.

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