Fires continued to burn through thousands of acres in the North Georgia mountains on Tuesday and historically dry conditions put metro Atlanta at risk in the event of local outdoor fires.
Rain, while desperately needed, is not expected anytime soon, Channel 2 Action News reported.
Local fire officials said dry conditions mean even when brush fires are quickly capped — like one that burned four to five acres in Cobb and Bartow counties overnight — they are more likely to restart.
Bartow County Fire Department Battalion Chief Sandy Turner said hot spots remained even though crews got a fire in the 4600 block of Liberty Square Drive under control Tuesday in Acworth. The land is partly owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“It will probably continue to smolder in spots until we get some decent rainfall,” Turner said.
Authorities took roughly 175 calls about wildfires from Friday to Monday, Georgia Forestry Commission spokeswoman Wendy Burnett said. It was not immediately clear how many of those wildfires were still active by Tuesday morning.
RELATED: Air quality 'unhealthy' amid code red smog alert and smoky haze
A fire in Rough Ridge burned through about 21,000 acres in the Cohutta Wilderness area of the Chattahoochee National Forest in Fannin County. It has been increasing by a few thousand acres every day, said Susie Heisey, a spokeswoman with the Southern Area Gold Team, a team helping the U.S. Forest Service get the fire under control.
“We’re expecting it to continue to grow as the fire meets our containment line,” she added.
She said crews are hoping the blaze will stop expanding so quickly after a couple of days.
A trail of smoke from the Rough Ridge fire is expected to push more toward the east than the south, Channel 2 meteorologist Brian Monahan said Tuesday morning.
“May see the smoke concentrated more over our eastern counties this afternoon,” he said. “Either way, air quality very poor again. Expect smoke to be less of an issue later Thursday into Friday before a front comes through and sends it all back south this weekend.”
Meanwhile, a fire at Rock Mountain in Rabun County has affected about 6,747 acres, the forestry commission said Tuesday. The blaze, about 10 miles north of Clayton in northeast Georgia, was 10 percent contained. About 160 firefighters were involved in efforts to fight the flames.
The wildfires are much 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.
About the Author
