Firefighters say Great Neck wildfire consumed 80 acres but no homes lost.

Residents in the Great Neck Community in southern Craven County are considering themselves fortunate after a wildfire consumed 80 acres of land, yet none of the 60 homes in the area were damaged.

"It turned out really well considering what could have happened," said Harlowe assistant fire chief Chuck Webb on Thursday.

Kim Arrington, N.C. Forest Service ranger for Craven County, said the fire is suspected to have been a result of an arsonist.

"Where it actually originated from there was just no other sign of anything else, lightning or anything," Arrington said. He identified the starting spot as in the marsh near Courts Creek.

The Wednesday evening fire began about 3:30 p.m. and was contained at approximately 8 p.m. Some local residents near Belangia Road and Godfrey Boulevard were kept from their homes until about 7:30 p.m.

Some 72 firefighters from Harlowe, Havelock, Newport, James City, Beaufort and Newport responded. The N.C. and U.S. Forest Services came to fight the wildfire along with a crew from Cherry Point. Two helicopters helped in fighting the fire by repeatedly dropping 150-gallon buckets of water. Forest service tractors cut fire breaks through the woods in many places to contain the blaze, which at times had flames shooting over the dense pines in the area.

At about 4 p.m. Wednesday, the fire was intense enough to jump across Belangia Road and start another vast fire.

On Thursday, smoldering stumps and occasional flame ups were seen as crews from the Harlowe Volunteer Fire Department and the N.C. Forest Service mopped up.

Evidence of how close the fire had come to igniting structures was apparent in several places.

A mobile home surrounded by woods had scorched grass just 25 feet away, where on Wednesday night firefighters had mounted a stand against the fire. Just beyond in the blackened ground, two Jeeps, and boat, and a shed were completely burned up by the heat. "This fire got hot here. It got all the way into the upper branches here," Webb said.

"We weren't even notified that this house was threatened. We just found it," said Harlowe VFD chief Jeremy Brown.

At another location, a metal storage building had blackened woods right up to its rear. Grass was burned right to the building's foundation. "If it had been wooden, it wouldn't be here," Webb said Thursday morning as he sprayed foam-laced water around the building after a forest service spotter plane overhead had reported a flame up.

At another house owned by Tripp Nielsen, firefighters had taken a stand against the fire as it burned on three sides of the structure Wednesday. Nielsen, who owns about 11 acres around his house, had trimmed about an acre's worth of brush away from his house leaving a lawn, and a buffer from the tall pines. Firefighters said Thursday that the measure had probably helped in saving Nielsen's home. Capt. Milton Everette, of the Harlowe VFD said that he and eight other firefighters fought the fire fiercely around the Nielsen house for about three hours surrounded by flames reaching the treetops.

On Thursday morning Nielsen had nothing but kind words for Everette. "It's amazing the mentality of a firefighter. It's blazing and you keep on going. Y'all are like Marines," Nielsen said as he stood next to Everette Thursday on the side of the unscathed home.

"We don't know if it came from an old fire or if someone set it. It's still under investigation," said Greg Riggs, assistant ranger in Craven County for the N.C. Forest Service.

"I tell you what. It could have been a lot worse," Riggs said. "This was crazy"