Historic drought conditions continued to lead to growing fires in North Georgia, including one that crept close to homes near Villa Rica on Monday.
Firefighters capped the flames before they reached homes, and there were no injuries reported.
But the brush fire torched just more than an acre and burned for more than three hours before firefighters were able to get it under control on Connors Road, Douglas County fire spokesman Wes Tallon said.
Wind and dry conditions have fueled flames from metro Atlanta to the North Georgia mountains over the past few weeks. Northwest Georgia counties on the Alabama border experienced especially dry conditions.
Douglas County reported 27 calls about grass, wood and illegal burning fires from Friday to Sunday, Tallon said. The county is in an “exceptional” drought, the worst category of dryness according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“There is absolutely no moisture in the soil,” Tallon said. “There’s no moisture in the vegetation.”
It is so dry that tossing a cigarette bud out of a car window while driving can spark flames that stretch across acres, Tallon said.
The county stopped granting permits that allow people to burn outdoors Friday.
“People just need to be extremely careful,” he said.
After weeks of battling the blazes, firefighting crews in North Georgia added hundreds of people from across the country and prepared for the long haul last week.
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Authorities took about 196 calls about wildfires Friday and over the weekend, Georgia Forestry Commission spokeswoman Wendy Burnett said. Sixteen of them were still active Monday.
The largest active fire, in Rough Ridge, is 55 percent contained, and it probably won't be completely contained until Nov. 30, according to a report from the National Interagency Coordination Center, which helps coordinate efforts between multiple agencies.
The Rough Ridge fire has burned more than 27,800 acres in the Cohutta Wilderness area of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in Fannin County, said Mary Stuever, a New Mexico fire official serving as a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
She joined a team of about 258 people from several agencies who are helping fight the Rough Ridge fire.
“We have many, many people working from many, many agencies,” she said.
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The smaller Rock Mountain blaze, spanning more than 12,700 acres about 10 miles north of Clayton in northeast Georgia, is 30 percent contained and isn’t expected to be contained fully until Dec. 15, the NICC reported.
Firefighting crews included about 434 people Monday, down from about 559 people staffing the blaze Friday, the U.S. Forest Service reported.
Rita Baysinger, who came from Colorado to help the U.S. Forest Service as a spokeswoman, said finding crews to help fight fires has taken time because the fire season doesn’t end until October for western states. She also said firefighting efforts won’t diminish for the holidays, instead continuing a rotation that cycles firefighters in and out to avoid exhaustion.
The Rough Ridge and Rock Mountain fires are smaller than the largest the state has seen. That designation belongs to a fire that burned more than 115,300 acres in Ware County in 2007.
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The fires have exhausted resources and required assistance from other agencies. The DNR, Department of Corrections, Georgia State Patrol and local fire and law enforcement departments have assisted with the fires.
For the first time in more than 50 years, metro Atlanta went more than 30 consecutive days without rain. That has happened only three other times: 1904, 1952 and 1961, Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Karen Minton said. Monday could be the 36th day without measurable rainfall, the National Weather Service reported.
WEATHER: Next chance of rain is Wednesday
Metro Atlanta has avoided the worst of the wildfires, but the most frequent impact has been smoke in the air and poor air quality.
The cost to fight fires has increased more than seven times in one year. Since July, the state spent $2.6 million fighting fires, up from $354,000 during the same period last year, Burnett said.
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“Keep in mind that last year we had gotten a lot of rain, so our spending was low. So basically we’ve gone from one extreme to the other.”
Last year, Georgia had 570 wildfires, which was the lowest number in 60 years. There have been more than 2,400 this year.
Restrictions banning open air fires, smoking, fire pits, grills and rings kicked in last week along the Appalachian National Scene Trail. The trail begins in Springer Mountain in Fannin County and stretches 78.6 miles through North Georgia.
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