By Stacy Shelton and Saeed Ahmed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — Parts of metro Atlanta were exposed to unhealthy levels of soot for several hours Wednesday from a controlled forest fire about 50 miles southeast of the city.
The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted the daylong burn on about 3,000 acres in the Oconee National Forest and the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge near the town of Monticello in Jasper County. People started reporting thick smoke wafting through McDonough, Decatur and Atlanta around 4 p.m. The state air monitor in downtown Atlanta was picking up heavy concentrations of soot at 9 p.m.
Downtown Atlanta office workers headed home around 6 p.m. clasped their hands over their noses and glanced toward the sky. Most asked the same question: What is that?
“I think I’m going to run to Home Depot and get a painter’s mask,” said Katie Slide, coughing to get through her words. “I know it’ll look silly with this [her business suit]. Like I got off work and suddenly got in the mood to paint my room.”
W. Gerald Teague, a professor of pediatrics at Emory University specializing in pediatric pulmonary medicine, predicted some people with asthma would begin having breathing attacks four to six hours after inhaling the ultrafine particles.
“This would be the kind of thing that could directly trigger asthma attacks, without question,” Teague said. “A person with healthy lungs and no asthma, they’re probably going to handle this.”
For several hours, the soot levels exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s daily standard considered safe for particle pollution. But because the levels did not last, the region is not likely to exceed the standard for the entire day.
Prolonged exposure to soot, dust and other particles has been linked to heart attacks and strokes, but there is little research on the effects of a short-term spike, Teague said. He studies the health effects of air pollution, and is on the board of directors for the Clean Air Campaign, a public-private partnership working to reduce automobile pollution.
Alan Dozier, chief of forest protection for the Georgia Forestry Commission, said conditions appeared excellent for a controlled burn. The pine straw, leaves and twigs were dry enough to burn but moist enough to keep it under control. And Thursday’s expected rain was a back-up extinguisher.
But Wednesday’s burn coincided with a strong wind blowing toward Atlanta and about 150 wildfires across the state, most of them small, Dozier said.
About 20 of the wildfires were near the Oconee forest. Most of the fires were probably started by people trying to burn their yard waste.
“Hindsight is 20-20,” Dozier said.
There are about 2,000 controlled burns conducted every year in the state on about 1 million acres, he said.
Although the burns contribute to the metro region’s overall poor air quality, they usually go off without notice.
Forest managers conduct burns to mimic nature, to make room for new growth and enhance the habitat for deer, turkey and other wildlife.
The Oconee fire was meant to help the red-cockaded woodpecker, a member of the federal endangered species list. The controlled burns also prevent wildfires, Dozier said.
The state forestry commission gave the federal agencies permission to conduct the burn.
By the afternoon, people in McDonough, Decatur, Atlanta, Lilburn and south Cobb County started calling friends, police and fire departments, city halls and state offices to find where the blackish haze and smell was coming from.
About 3:30 p.m., Preston Dorsey’s cellphone started buzzing and would not let up. Dorsey is the police chief of McDonough, where the soot level rocketed because of the burn, according to data on the state Environmental Protection Division’s Web site.
He said he fielded more than 25 calls from residents asking whether a massive fire had broken out in their city.
Dispatchers at his police station also had their hands full, as did city employees — in short, residents called anyone whose numbers they could get their hands on.
“You walked out and it felt like there was pretty heavy wood fire,” Dorsey said. “If people had asthma, I can see how it would affect them.” In Decatur, Frida Ghitis immediately went inside when the air started smelling funny around 4 p.m.
“It suddenly started to look very cloudy, almost like an early morning fog,” said Ghitis, 46. “To me it smells almost like burning plastic. It was unpleasant enough that I had to go back inside.”
Ghitis called Decatur police. She was advised to stay inside.
Meanwhile, the city closest to the burn center at the Oconee National Forest — Monticello — was affected minimally by the smoke. Except for a slight haze in the sky, residents said they noticed next to nothing. “I saw the smoke but it wasn’t dipping down,” said Charles Smith, 56. “It was getting on in the atmosphere and moving on.”