Waycross - Recent rains have delayed fire-fighting efforts in the Okefenokee Swamp but the discovery 339 sticks of dynamite completely shut down a planned burnout at Okefenokee Swamp Park.
Acting on a tip from a night security guard that dynamite was stored in a bunker near the park’s bear enclosure, firefighters found the dynamite Sunday in a metal structure behind an earthen berm, said Rudy Evenson, a fire information officer for the Georgia Fire Information Center.
A three-man bomb disposal squad from the 756th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team at Fort Stewart came to the park Monday, moved the dynamite to an open area beside Georgia 177 a mile from the park entrance and detonated it, Evenson said.
Mike Lee, who is working structure protection in the park, said they were told about the explosives from a “gentleman who works night security.”
The man said he woke up in the middle of the night and remembered that his predecessor had told him about the dynamite 16 years earlier, Lee said.
With the description that it was somewhere north of the bear pin, it was easy to find given he presence of the berm, Lee said.
“We confirmed it was there. We backed off,’’ he said.
Lee said he looked into the door of the metal box structure and saw the ends of “five sticks of old, paper-wrapped dynamite.”
Park Manager Martin Bell said dynamite was likely used to blow cypress stumps and excavate canals when the park was first built in the 1940s, Evenson said.
Locals had talked about a stockpile of dynamite, but Bell said, “You never knew if it was a swamper story or not.”
Evenson said, “We were glad to have found it before the fire got here.”
Dynamite usually needs the concussion of a blasting cap to explode and would have likely just burned very hot had the fire gotten to it.
The disposal team soaked the dynamite in acetone, which makes it less volatile, and moved it to the spot beside Georgia 177, dug a three-foot hole and blew it with C4 explosive.
“We drove it to the shot hole slower than they move the space shuttle to the launch pad,’’ Spec. Frank Medina Jr. told Evenson.
With the dynamite gone, fire crews can finish a long-planned burnout of fuels around Swamp Park to protect its buildings except for one thing: It’s too wet.
Recent rains have kept the Honey Prairie Fire quite for days, but incident commander Mike Quesinberry warned against complacency.
“The fire is not out. We’re taking every advantage of every opportunity the weather gives us to gain the upper hand,” he said.
Firefighters were able to conduct a burnout in the northwest portion of the refuge, the largest area still unburned in the 283,673-acre fire.
Tractor plows responded to a 15-acre reburn Monday of the Windmill Fire, which is west of the Sweat Farm Again Fire west of Waycross. Ware County Fire and Rescue responded first to the fire, the joint information center said.
Crews are still mopping up and improving fire lines on the Sweat Farm Again Fire and the Race Pond Fire, the two most prominent members of the Satilla Summer Fires. With more accurate mapping, both are slightly smaller than previous estimates. Sweat Farm Again is 19,169 acres and 69 percent contained and Race Pond is 20,934 acres and 67 percent contained.
Quesinberry said he is growing more optimistic about Honey Prairie.
That optimism could be apparent in the personnel assigned in the coming days.
Fire information officer C.J. Norvell said a number of crews from Georgia and the 12 closest states of 48 contributing personnel are starting to demobilize and head home.
Those from states farther away are staying because of the length of time it would take to get them back should Honey Prairie or the other fires take off again, Norvell said.
There were 1,458 assigned to the fire Tuesday, but that could drop by more than half by the weekend, said Janan Sharp, chief of planning on the fire.
It all depends on what the refuge believes it will need to continue containing the fire, Sharp said.
As of Tuesday, there were 172 fire engines on the fire, down from 202 Monday, and 12 helicopters, down two from a day earlier. The number of bulldozers was up by three to 115.
Fire information officer Jim Burkhart said there have been nearly two dozen inquiries about Suwannee Canal Recreation Area and other swamp facilities being open for the July 4 weekend. Burkhart said all public entrances will remain closed and it will take some time before they will reopen.
“We don’t want people to come to the refuge July 4 thinking we’re open and get disappointed,’’ he said.
About the Author
