2008 was a bad year for wildfires in Va.

ROANOKE -- Wildfires that ravaged Virginia last year scorched more than 25,700 acres, the most damage in a single year since 1963, according to the state Department of Forestry.

Most of the destruction occurred in February, when 16,000 acres of state and private land were charred after high winds knocked down power lines statewide. On one day, Feb. 10, a record 354 fires blazed throughout the state.

By year's end, 1,322 fires had charred 25,704 acres. By comparison, 1,509 fires blackened 11,200 acres the previous year.

Last year's blazes consumed the Forestry Department's firefighting budget. The agency set aside $500,000 to fight fires in fiscal 2008 but had spent it all by the end of February, eight months into the fiscal year.

Forestry spokesman John Campbell said the agency tapped into the governor's contingency fund to battle fires after February, eventually spending $793,818 in 2008.

Last year was the worst year in terms of acreage in 45 years, Campbell said. In 1963, 44,823 acres in Virginia were damaged by wildfires. The all-time record was set in 1930, with 333,023 acres.

The February fires, which were sparked by wind gusts that toppled power lines onto dry forests, prompted Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to declare a state of emergency and call on the Virginia National Guard to assist firefighters across the state. Maj. Cotton Puryear, spokesman for the Guard, said many of the more than 100 members who helped fight fires had just returned from overseas duty.

Use of the Guard was so unusual, Puryear said, that all of them had to undergo a day of training. "It had been a while since we'd done firefighting duty.

"We've done it before, but it had been several years."

The state's tally of scorched acres does not include fires on federal land in Virginia, such as the summer blaze in the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. That fire burned 121 days -- the longest in state history -- and blackened more than 4,400 acres.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or .