As drought conditions intensify across the state, burn bans and water restrictions are leaving residents thirsty for answers.
More than 90% of North Carolina is in at least severe drought, with nearly 40% in the extreme drought category — including parts of Wake County. A statewide burn ban is in effect to decrease the risk of wildfire, while Raleigh Water has implemented Stage 1 water restrictions to curb nonessential use and conserve water.
Roughly 80% of Raleigh’s water comes from the Falls Lake reservoir, with an additional 20% coming from Lake Benson.
Falls Lake currently has roughly 80% of its water supply remaining. Stage 1 water restrictions are activated when the reservoir drops below 85% capacity in April, according to the city’s Water Shortage Response Plan.
Ed Buchan, assistant director for Raleigh Water, said reservoirs and lakes are typically full by April, making the current shortage concerning.
“[April] is the highest trigger throughout the year, and that is because there’s never been, until this year, one historical example where Falls Lake was not full on April 1st,” Buchan said. “Versus in December, that trigger is probably around 40-45%.”
Stage 1 restrictions primarily include rules regarding outdoor watering. Sprinklers may be used only once per week between midnight and 10 a.m., with odd-numbered addresses watering on Tuesdays and even-numbered addresses on Wednesdays.
Similar restrictions apply to hose-end sprinklers, with use regulated by address and between 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.. Current restrictions are now saving about 5 million gallons of water a day, with 63.53 gallons used daily during the first week of restrictions.
NC State is required to comply with these restrictions, such as for landscaping, though athletic fields are not impacted.“We learned a lot from the ‘07-’08 drought,” Buchan said. “At the end of the day, the only thing a utility can really regulate is outdoor elective use. Indoor use, you can’t really force people to take short showers or not wash clothes.”
Buchan said some water uses that were regulated in the 2007-2008 drought did not actually use that much water, such as power washing and car washes.
“Believe it or not, a lot of car washes recycle water, so they don’t use much,” Buchan said.
Stage 2 restrictions are unlikely, Buchan said, requiring Falls Lake to drop to 60% capacity for May. Stage 3 restrictions would require the capacity to drop to 35%.
Stage 2 restrictions would no longer allow spray irrigation, hose-end sprinklers or non-automatic irrigation. Stage 3 restrictions further restrict drip irrigation and bucket watering and do not allow athletic field irrigation, car washing, pressure washing or filling swimming pools.
“I won’t be surprised if this drought persists [further] into 2026, maybe through most of 2026,” Buchan said. “We’re probably not going to hit Stage 2 if we just get normal rainfall in May and June and the rest of the summer. I think we should be able to hang in there in stage one.”
The drought will likely take several months to end, Buchan added.
Buchan said the city is trying to prevent more severe measures by implementing Stage 1 restrictions, and the water authority learned a lot from the 2007-2008 drought.
“That’s the whole basis of the plan … It helps you go into drought restrictions before you get into real trouble. It also helps you from going into drought restrictions when you don’t need to,” Buchan said. “The old system we had in ‘07-’08 was just a flat number, I think it might’ve been days remaining of water.”
Following the 2007-2008 drought, the authority invested heavily in capital projects and aimed to ensure an adequate supply of water to help deal with future droughts.
The city added Lake Benson as a source of water, and flipped the ratio of water the city could claim from Falls Lake — originally, the city was entitled to 42% of the reservoir’s water, but it is now entitled to 58%.
Corey Davis, an assistant state climatologist for the North Carolina State Climate Office, said the current drought has been developing since last summer. He said the drought is likely to hit areas east of Charlotte the hardest currently due to the low amount of precipitation.
Davis said wildfire risk is elevated by the dry conditions, and is particularly high in western North Carolina due to decaying debris from Hurricane Helene. Spring is already a highly active wildfire season.
“That storm caused so much damage in those high elevation regions of North Carolina that debris will continue to decay year after year. That will slowly make it more and more flammable,” Davis said.
Roughly 40-50% of wildfires in North Carolina are started by escaped debris burns, leading to North Carolina’s current burn ban. Human-caused fires are a major source of wildfire risk, though future thunderstorms may also increase risk.
“[The Forest Service] are still seeing things like chains from vehicles that are scraping the roadsides and lighting the grasses along the side of the road on fire,” Davis said.
Pointing to recent fires in Georgia, Davis said if the state remains dry, larger wildfires similar to those seen recently in Georgia could pop up.
“Even this week, we’ve seen several fires popping up in the mountains and then to our east along the coastline,” Davis said. “That is a concern if it stays dry over these next few weeks and we can see what’s going on to our south, like across Florida and south Georgia, they have started seeing some very large wildfires, in some cases burning more than 10,000 acres.”
Davis stated climate change is increasing drought and wildfire risk, referring to “weather whiplash,” or the state swinging back and forth between extreme wet events, like Tropical Storm Chantal, and extreme dry events such as the current drought.
“It fits the overall pattern where we are seeing the wet days getting wetter and the dry periods getting longer and more severe,” Davis said.
