More than 1,600 wildfires have been reported in Georgia so far in this year, the Georgia Forestry Commission (GFC) reported Tuesday. And there has also been a 20 percent increase of them in the same three-month period in the past five years.
WSB Radio also quotes GFC officials as saying more than half of all wildfires in Georgia this year have been the result of debris burning such as yard leaf piles, agricultural, construction land clearing, escaped prescribed burning and forestry site preparation.
The hardest hit area so far has been northwest Georgia where several large-scale fires have been reported. Over the weekend in that area several homes were briefly evacuated because of a fire. But the largest fire so far is the one in the Rabun County that we’ve been reporting on all week which, as of Monday, the U.S. Forest Service said had consumed more than 300 acres and was still “zero percent” contained. Chattahoochee fire grows to 300+ acres
Meanwhile, a Red Flag Warning has been issued again for today for Hall and several other counties in north and central Georgia as outlined in the accompanying map. The other shaded counties are under a Fire Danger Advisory.
