Months of neglect from federal officials threatened to combine the worst elements of two recent major disasters. Fortunately, residents in western North Carolina, a region ravaged by Hurricane Helene in September and then largely ignored by former President Joe Biden's Federal Emergency Management Agency for months thereafter,

The wildfire strikes an inland region of North Carolina that is still recovering from the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene in September.

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. SWANNANOA—People are living in campers in fields of debris off U.