A brief brush fire Friday afternoon sent smoke over I-85 south of the Ga. 400 ramps.

Crews worked to put out a small fire near a Goodwill store on Piedmont Road, according to Atlanta fire spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford. The fire was caused by “outside burning,” he said.

He said debris from a “homeless encampment” was found in the area where the fire happened.

The fire was extinguished about 1:30 p.m. It did not compromise the I-85 bridge, and no other structures were damaged, according to Stafford.

The view earlier from a Georgia Department of Transportation camera showed white smoke billowing out from beneath the southbound side of the highway.

— Staff reporter David Wickert contributed to this article.

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Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney — pictured during a hearing Monday, Dec. 15, 2025 — has cleared the way for Georgia's State Election Board to obtain Fulton ballots and other documents from the 2020 election. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

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