“A little bit of rain is going to help us, but it’s not going to get us out of this situation,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told a news conference after touring the fire areas Tuesday. “We’re going to be in this for a while.”
A fire that has burned roughly 35 square miles (90 square kilometers) and destroyed more than 80 homes in rural Brantley County was 32% contained, the command team overseeing the fire response said Tuesday. That's up from just 6% containment reported Monday.
Rains on Sunday slowed the fire enough to give crews an opening to widen containment lines along the perimeter and to snuff out some smoldering pockets, said Johnny Sabo, director of the Georgia Forestry Commission.
“As that number increases, our confidence at holding it in that footprint increases,” Sabo told reporters. He added: “We have a long way to go. I just want to stress that.”
A larger wildfire in sparsely populated Clinch and Echols counties has charred more than 50 square miles (130 square kilometers) at the Georgia-Florida line. Sabo said crews have held that fire to roughly the same footprint for four days. It was considered 23% contained Tuesday.
One home and several dozen sheds and other smaller structures were destroyed, said Don Thomas, a Georgia Forestry Commission spokesperson.
An unusually large number of wildfires are burning this spring across the Southeast. Scientists say the threat of fire has been amplified by a combination of extreme drought, gusty winds and dead trees and other vegetation.
No fire injuries or deaths have been reported in Georgia. A volunteer firefighter in Nassau County, Florida, died last week after suffering an unspecified medical emergency while suppressing a brush fire.
