Among the natural disasters that Georgians have to prepare for are wildfires. These are fires that begin in grasslands, forests, and other natural areas. Due to their tendency to spread quickly, wildfires are uncontrollable.
They can be ignited by lightning and other natural phenomena, but they can also be caused by human activities. In fact, the latter causes nearly 85% of wildfires in the country, according to the National Park Service (NPS). The no. 1 cause of wildfires in Georgia is debris burning, which accounts for more than 50% of all the wildfires in the Empire State of the South, according to the Georgia Forestry Commission.
Debris burning is especially risky in communities located within natural areas. In fact, these neighborhoods have the highest wildfire risk in the state. Next to them comes those situated in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas, or those zones where human development meet or intermingle with unoccupied or undeveloped land that’s filled with vegetation that can fuel wildfires.
Georgia faces a higher risk of wildfires during dry and windy months. This fire season typically occurs from February to May. As such, many wildfires in the state happen within these months. The West Mims Fire, which affected Charlton, Clinch, and Ware counties from May to July 2017, is an example.
But, in the state’s wildfire history, one stands out as the largest wildfire in Georgia.
The Sweat Farm Fire
Many sources deem the wildfire that occurred on April 16, 2007 as the largest wildfire in the history of the Peach State. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been reported as stating that this was “the Southeast’s biggest wildfire since 1898.” Meanwhile, Firehouse Magazine describes it as “the largest wildfire in more than a century.”
In any case, it is definitely one of the worst fires in the country’s history.
How the Wildfire Started
Ernest Sweat, a tobacco farm owner, was driving home when he spotted smoke. It wasn’t dust from the dirt road, but signs of a fire nearby.
Upon closer inspection, he found that a fallen pine had snapped power lines. It acted like a match that set ablaze the surrounding trees. Although the Sweat Farm owner rushed home to notify the fire department, the flames had already begun to spread.
Within a day, the wildfire burned through 9 miles of rural timberland. Within a week, the wildfire had found its way to Okefenokee Swamp, thanks to extremely dry conditions. Multiple homes were destroyed in its wake.
After a month, the wildfire met and united with a second fire known as the Bugaboo Island Fire when lightning ignited the flames at the center of the swamp. In its path were more than 9 sq. miles (23 sq. km) of coastal pine forest, and along with brush and grasses, it served as tinder to the blaze.
“This fuel [parched stands of trees] is really volatile. It doesn’t take very much for it to light up and run,” Wayne Ichiyasu, a crew supervisor from Boulder, Colorado, told The New York Times.
A wind blew the wildfire northwest toward Florida. Thousands of firefighters from Georgia and other states were not able to quench the flames.
In the end, Sweat’s biggest regret was how he wasn’t able to stop the fire before it became the biggest in Georgia’s history. ‘‘If I could have just been here a little bit earlier, before it got into those roots, I could’ve outed it,’’ he told The Associated Press.
How the Sweat Farm Fire Ended
The firefighters finally saw a reprieve from the seemingly unrelenting flames in the form of Tropical Storm Barry. The storm brought as much as 8 inches of rain on June 2, quickly reducing the blaze into embers, and then scattered showers poured an additional 2 to 4 inches on the fires.
Tropical Storm Barry definitely stopped the blaze in its tracks, so the firefighters focused on dousing hot spots. Others turned their attention to bushes and trees and began ripping them out and pushing them out of the way. Still others were tasked with creating and fortifying fire breaks. Using bulldozers, they ploughed a line of dirt, roughly 20 feet across, to put an end to the spread of the fire.
Their efforts worked. At this point, the wildfire was considered to be more than 90% contained, so many firefighters were sent home. In July, the Sweat Farm Fire was deemed fully contained.
Wildfire Damages
The fire ravaged through acres and acres of land, not only in Georgia but in neighboring Florida as well. In the first 48 hours alone, the Sweat Farm Fire burned through 20,000 acres (around 8,000 hectares).
In the aftermath, the Georgia Forestry Commission attributes a total of more than 564,450 acres (nearly 230,000 hectares) across Georgia and Florida to the wildfire. The area the blaze touched was 2.8 times larger than New York City, according to a Statesboro Herald report—up to 30 miles (48 km) wide and 58 miles (93 km) long.
The Georgia Forestry Commission reports that up to $65 million worth of timber ruined by the fire. Meanwhile, according to the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency (GEMA), the wildfire destroyed a total of 18 homes.
Lessons Learned
Aside from the charred remains of trees and other burnt things, the Sweat Farm Fire left two main lessons for the Georgia Forestry Commission.
The first one was how planning and wildfire protection strategies would play an important role in lessening the impact of future wildfires. As a result, the agency built a permanent fire break around the Okefenokee Swamp known as Swamp Edge Break. The fire break would protect the wetland, which is known globally for its amphibian residents as well as other threatened and endangered species, such as indigo snakes, red-cockaded woodpeckers, and wood storks. At the same time, the fire break also serves as an escape route and safety zone in the event of fires.
Secondly, the agency learned that they could dig small ponds at strategic places near the swamp. These helicopter dip sites, as they were called, were created to provide sufficient water supply for helicopters and engines to refill water from. The agency maintains a total of 74 helicopter dip sites today.
As for Sweat Farm’s owner, he began riding his four-wheel all-terrain vehicle to check for signs of flames after the wildfire. ‘‘I’m fire conscious now,’’ he told the Statesboro Herald. ‘‘I don’t have much, but I’d sure like for it to stay here.’’
