North Georgia Wildfires Still Burning
Last week, on a brisk evening, I walked out of my house and my street looked like a scene out “The Fog,” except this fog consisted of smoke from drought-induced forest fires that have been ravaging the Georgia countryside for more than two weeks.
Like many of you, I wondered about the smoke that had descended on main campus in the first week. Someone told me it was just a bad house fire. I didn’t give the smoke much thought since I’ve been preoccupied with finals. On my drive back from Atlanta on Thanksgiving evening, I encountered some spots with hazy smoke and the faint scent of burning wood. Trapped behind the wheel, I had plenty of time to wonder about what exactly is going on with the forest fires.
As it turns out, while most of us were enjoying our Thanksgiving feasts, there firefighters who sacrificed their time with family and friends to battle the flames in north Georgia. Churches in Dade and Gordon counties showed their thanks by setting up Thanksgiving dinners for the firefighters in the field. The fires have been raging for more than two weeks now, destroying thousands of acres; one person died in a related structural fire, and two others have been injured.
Spanning 18,069 acres by Wednesday, November 23, the wildfire at Rock Mountain in Rabun County is currently the largest active blaze. Residents will most likely be evacuated as fire fighters push back the fire’s perimeter in an effort to keep it under control—at the moment the fire is only 35 percent contained. Officials don’t expect full containment until around December 15 and predict the wildfire could destroy as much as 30,000 acres before they succeed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that crews included 467 people utilizing six helicopters, four water tankers, four bulldozers and 24 fire engines.
The Rock Mountain fire is only one of 4,370 blazes just this year and not even the largest on record. That distinction goes to the Ware County fire that destroyed more than 115,300 acres in 2007. For those students, faculty and administrators who are traveling to north Georgia for the holidays, please check for fire locations online and be alert.
