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Letter to the editor

Georgia wildfire still smoldering; if only, says man who saw it start

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 24, 2007

WAYCROSS, Ga. - Ernest Sweat paused by the charred pine trunk he found burning like a match two months ago and wondered - could he have stopped the largest Southeastern wildfire in more than a century?

Sweat was driving home April 16 when he spotted smoke along the dirt road to his tobacco farm. Power lines were snapped by fallen pine and flames climbed surrounding trees. He dashed home to call the fire department, but the blaze had already spread.

It would become the Southeast's biggest wildfire since 1898, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

"If I could have just been here a little bit earlier, before it got into those roots, I could've outed it, " he said.

Within a day, the wildfire burned a 9-mile path through rural timberland. A week later, the blaze had destroyed 18 homes and spread into the Okefenokee Swamp.

After a month, it merged with a second fire, sparked by lightning, and raced through the swamp into northern Florida. Firefighters were unable to stop the blaze from spreading rapidly through trees, brush and grasses turned tinder-dry by severe drought in southeast Georgia.

In the end, the massive fire would burn 903 square miles. Its footprint, up to 30 miles wide and 58 miles long, covers an area 2.8 times larger than New York City.

The total cost is estimated at more than $54-million since the fires began, most of it covered under federal emergency grants.

Fire officials say the fire, for the most part, has stopped growing.

Records of the Iowa-based National Interagency Fire Center show South Carolina reported a series of fires that burned 3-million acres in 1898, although center spokeswoman Rose Davis questioned the accuracy of records from so long ago.

Meanwhile, the Georgia Forestry Commission expects to have a portion of the blaze - 82, 500 acres south of Waycross and north of the Okefenokee refuge - snuffed within three weeks.

Still, firefighters stress that if the rains cease, dry conditions and strong winds could cause pockets of flame to flare back to life.

Sweat said he rides his all-terrain vehicle through the woods behind his house "to see if I can see any fire starting up."

"I'm fire-conscious now, " he said. "I don't have much, but I'd sure like for it to stay here."

[Last modified June 24, 2007, 01:42:51]