You’ve booked a cozy rental home for your Georgia or Florida beach getaway this summer. You’ve scouted out a promising seafood restaurant there, even a donut shop. And you’ve found a pal to take care of your pets while you are spreading your toes in the sand.
But there's at least one more thing you should do before you haul those beach umbrellas out of the attic: Check on the massive wildfire now raging across 72 square miles in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. Smoke was reported on St. Simons Island Sunday. It was in Jacksonville Monday morning. And more could come to Coastal Georgia and Florida in the months ahead. On Monday, firefighters predicted the blaze — set by lightning — won't be fully contained until Nov. 1.
Breathing smoke from the blaze could be unhealthy, particularly for sick or elderly people and children. Updates about the "West Mims Fire" and air quality advisories will be posted at inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5153/ and
Of course, a lot of factors will play into whether smoke will drift as far as Amelia or Sea islands. Among those factors: the direction and strength of the wind, the time of day and the materials that are burning.
MORE: Georgia eases drought restrictions as dry conditions retreat
“It’s far too early to say what the impacts will be over Memorial Day,” said Rick Davis, a National Weather Service meteorologist who is monitoring the wildfire. “Keep your plans, obviously. But keep an eye on the weather. Keep an eye on what the fire is doing. And plan accordingly.”
Exacerbated by the lingering effects of Georgia’s drought, the fire expanded by more than 10,000 acres over the weekend amid high winds that pushed its northwestern edge four miles north toward Stephen C. Foster State Park near Fargo in South Georgia. Fiddlers, Blackjack and Mitchell islands have been scorched. Hundreds of people are battling the flames with helicopters, wildland fire engines, dozers and tractor plows. Just 4 percent of the blaze was contained as of Sunday.
“There is going to be smoke throughout the summer,” said Susan Granbery, a spokeswoman for the interagency group battling the fire. “There were reports of smoke yesterday on St. Simons Island.”
Andrew Kennedy, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service, said he saw smoke Monday around 8:30 a.m. outside his office in Jacksonville.
“The smell of the fire was evident as soon as I walked outside,” he said in an email. “The smoke created a milky haze in the air and reduced visibility. My coworkers’ eyes started watering and burning, and that lasted several minutes. This was all experienced from exposure of around one minute this morning.”
Coastal Georgia is still recovering from last year’s Hurricane Matthew, which killed four people, toppled trees, knocked out power and flooded roads and homes in the region.
And officials said the drought, which has allowed water levels to dip significantly, has helped the latest blaze spread.
“The drought has produced some of the driest fuels on record and a more consistent, dry fuel bed,” Granbery said. “It has created a mass of dry fuel, allowing for larger growth of the fire.”
Still, tourism officials along the coast sought to downplay the impact as the region prepares to enter its busiest season.
M.H. “Woody” Woodside, president of the Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce, said he hasn’t noticed any smoke in Brunswick yet.
“As far as affecting our tourism — we don’t anticipate that,” he said. “We haven’t been affected at all by it so far. And I… have not heard any warnings at all that we would.”
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