The smoke. It’s a part of life now. It’s that clawing at the back of your throat, that stinging in your eyes.
It’s what defines daily living here, near the heart of one of Georgia’s worst wildfires. Parts of Rabun County pop and smolder like a campfire that won’t go out.
The fire, say officials, was intentional.
Despite the best efforts of scores of firefighters, the Rock Mountain fire — one of several raging throughout North Georgia in recent days — has continued to spread. Fire officials awoke Tuesday morning to discover that their adversary had grown by about 1,200 acres overnight to nearly 6,500 acres. The flames have reached north, west and to the south. It is only about 10 percent contained.
For Atlanta, the fire in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest near the North Carolina border has been a nuisance, coating cities as far south as Macon in a smoky haze. The fire is one of several that have devoured thousands of drought-stricken mountain acres in Georgia and other states. It’s the stuff of TV news and radio updates. On Tuesday, officials issued a smog alert for metro Atlanta, the unhealthy air prompting some residents to hunker down inside.
But here, it’s more serious. The flames have yet to destroy any homes or businesses, but are edging close enough to prompt temporary evacuations. They’ve forced state and federal officials to call in firefighters from as far away as Oregon to beat back at something far greater than they.
The fire also has fanned fears that are proving as persistent as the flames themselves. In a season when people usually admire nature’s beauty, they’re fearing its cruelty.
Pam Brokamp knows. Her home is in the Persimmon community just north of Clayton’s business district. It’s not three miles from the slopes where fires lick at old hardwoods.
She rang up a sale at the Clayton Café, where she works, and sighed. “Saturday and Sunday,” she said, “the smoke finally got into our house.”
She and her husband, Dennis Massengill, are awaiting orders. If the flames change direction, they’ll have to act — fast.
“All my family in Cincinnati keeps saying, ‘Get out! Get out!’” Brokamp said. She heaved another sigh. “Maybe I should.”
“Historic fire season”
The U.S. Forest Service set up a command post at the Rabun Community Center, just a block from Clayton’s main intersection. It’s in a brick building locals call “the old hospital,” where generations of Rabun County residents got born, got healed, got final rites.
Tuesday morning, it hummed with activity as computer monitors showed how the fire had moved, and when. Stan Hinatsu, an Oregon-based USFS staff officer, pointed his finger at a computer screen where a series of red lines — live fires, or the still-smoldering path of the fire — arced north and west.
Hinatsu got here Sunday. He came with a crew specially trained to fight complex fires, the sort that threaten homes and businesses as well as the environment. The Rock Mountain fire, he said, is just such a conflagration.
“This is a historic fire season for Georgia,” he said. “This is a big fire for here.”
The Rock Mountain fire, said Hinatsu, has been especially bothersome. The terrain is dry. Creeks that might normally stop a fire have been reduced to trickles, and cannot stop flames from jumping over their banks. Falling leaves are airborne tinder.
Another problem: the land itself. Rabun County is as rumpled as a tossed-off blanket. Some areas are nearly impossible for heavy firefighting machinery to reach. That leaves firefighters with only the weapons they can hoist — ax and chainsaw, shovel and hose.
The greatest impediment, Hinatsu said, may be “lack of resources” — people. Fewer than 200 are working on the Rock Mountain fire.
“We’re tapped out,” Hinatsu said.
Tapped out with a lot of work to go. Chad Cullum, who arrived this weekend with a crew from Billings, Mont., stood on a rocky reach of Old Coleman River Road and watched flames crawl up a 45-degree slope. Not far away, another Montana firefighter fired up his chainsaw and put it to work on a burning oak.
Firefighters normally can rely on flames to subside at night, when humidity usually increases, Cullum said. That hasn’t happened here.
“This fire can burn 20, 24 hours in a day,” Cullum said. “We’ve seen active burning all through the night.”
Without some rain, he said, that burning may continue.
Watching, praying
Rain. It's the subtext of nearly every conversation. The mountains haven't had a decent rainfall in weeks. With some rain, folks say, the fires would die, the smoke subside.
That calls for prayer. The Rev. Scott Cates, who heads Liberty Baptist Church, has done plenty of that, and more. The church, just south of here, opened its fellowship hall for donations for firefighters. Cates last week posted a notice on the church’s Facebook page announcing it was soliciting snacks, toiletries and other essentials for the men and women toiling in Rabun’s smoky ridges. He wasn’t prepared for the reaction to that post.
“It went viral,” said Cates, still sounding surprised. He stepped aside as a church member walked past with more energy bars that she tossed in a bin already brimming with energy food. He nodded at another bin. “We just got a box of Riccola cough drops!”
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, said Cates, the church’s mission team visited the city nine times with food, water and prayer. Perhaps, he said, those good deeds are now getting repaid.
Doris Fry believes in the power of prayer, too. She and her husband, Emanuel, live close enough to the fire’s eastern edge to keep their windows closed. Smoky air is not good for retirees’ lungs.
Tuesday afternoon, she stepped outside to walk the dogs, Daisy and Toby. Nearby, three ducks — they’re keeping them for some friends who decided to evacuate — milled about in a makeshift pen and quacked.
She sniffed the air, grimaced. “Ash. In the air,” she said.
They moved here eight years ago from Florida, lured to the mountains by the change of seasons, the rolling land, the chill of a late night. Now, she said, they worry and pray and hope. The fire could change direction.
She and her husband are ready to flee, if they must. She pointed at a reminder of their days on the road — a travel trailer. They still have a daughter in Florida. “Maybe we should go visit her.”
The day dwindled and finally went black. A moon rose over ridges where men and women waged an uphill fight. And still the smoke came.
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