Tree service in Carolina Forest — thirty thousand acres of pines, and a fire that proved it
International Paper's Buist Tract became the fastest-growing part of Horry County. The pines the builders left over the houses, the Carolina bays underneath, and the March 2025 fire that evacuated seven neighborhoods are the whole story of tree work here.
Carolina Forest was International Paper's 30,000-acre Buist Tract — pine plantation and Carolina bays — until the 1990s, when it became the biggest master-planned community on the Strand: the Farm, Waterford Plantation, Plantation Lakes, Berkshire Forest, Avalon, Walkers Woods, the Parks, and a dozen more off Carolina Forest Boulevard and River Oaks Drive. It's unincorporated Horry County, so the county's rules apply — every live oak 24 inches and up is a specimen, with a survey required before clearing — and it's pines everywhere: the builders left the loblollies and longleafs standing over the houses, and twenty-five years on they're the tallest, most lightning-prone, most beetle-prone trees in every yard, rooted in sand over peat.
Then there's the fire. On March 1, 2025, a backyard debris fire in Carolina Forest got away into the pines and the peat, burned 2,059 acres, evacuated about seven neighborhoods, and smoldered in the Carolina bay soils for days. It wasn't the first — the 2009 Highway 31 fire burned 19,130 acres from an escaped burn and destroyed 76 homes on the same ground — and it changed how people here think about the pines against the fence and the brush pile in the back. So our Carolina Forest work is pine assessment and removal, defensible-space thinning along the wooded edges, HOA-standard pruning on the street trees, beetle and lightning calls after every summer storm, and lot clearing that mulches instead of burns. We don't light fires on this ground.
What we do in Carolina Forest
Pine assessment & removal
Beetle-hit, lightning-struck and leaning loblollies ranked and removed; crane over pools and roofs.
Defensible-space thinning
Pines and understory thinned along wooded property edges after the 2025 fire.
HOA pruning packages
The Farm, Waterford, Plantation Lakes and the rest: street-tree standards, documentation, insurance on file.
Specimen-oak surveys
County-required measurement of live oaks before any lot clearing.
Mulch, don't burn
Forestry mulching for lots and brush; no debris burns on peat.
Storm response
The 501 corridor takes the first wind off the Waterway; we answer 24/7.
Neighborhoods and areas we cover
- The Farm
- Waterford Plantation
- Plantation Lakes
- Berkshire Forest
- Avalon
- Walkers Woods
- The Parks of Carolina Forest
- Covington Lakes
- Blackmoor
- Carolina Forest Boulevard
- River Oaks Drive
- Postal Way / Hwy 501 edge
Tree services available in Carolina Forest
- Tree removal, 24/7 emergency service, crane removal
- Trimming & pruning, live oak care, palmetto & palm trimming
- Pine removal & bark beetles, stump grinding, permits & arborist reports
- Hurricane prep, storm cleanup, lot clearing
Questions from Carolina Forest homeowners
The pines along my back fence worry me after the fire. What should I do?
Thin them. Take out the dead and beetle-hit ones, raise the canopies, clear the understory and the pine straw against the fence for 30 feet, and never pile brush there. We do defensible-space work in a day.
Can I burn the brush from a cleanup?
Legally, with the Forestry Commission's notification, 50 feet from structures and property lines, never during a ban. On Carolina Forest's peat, where the 2025 fire smoldered underground for days, we mulch or haul instead and recommend you do the same.
Is there a live oak rule here?
Yes — the county's: every live oak 24 inches and up is a specimen, even on a house lot. Most Carolina Forest lots are pines, but the oaks along the old farm edges and the lakes get measured before anyone cuts.
What does a dead 80-foot pine over the pool cost?
By crane, $2,500–$5,000. Rigged down in sections where there's room, $900–$2,000. If three neighbors have the same problem, one crane day covers all three.
Nearby: Forestbrook & Socastee · Grande Dunes · Conway · North Myrtle Beach · full service area