By Jeffry Scott
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WAYCROSS, Ga. — Gov. Sonny Perdue said Tuesday the state would seek more federal money to battle two-week-old wildfires in southeast Georgia that have already cost the state $18 million, burned more than 135 square miles and destroyed 21 homes.
Perdue addressed staff and reporters at the operational headquarters near the Waycross Airport where dozens of state, local and federal agencies have coordinated airplanes, helicopters, ground equipment and more than 800 staff and volunteer firefighters in a counteroffensive against the drought-fed fires that have confounded the experts.
“We’re fighting unprecedented fire activity,” Robert Farris, interim director of the Georgia Forestry Commission, told reporters. The biggest of the numerous wildfires that have erupted over the past two weeks, the Sweat Farm Road Fire, has consumed more than 82,000 acres, making it the single worst fire in state history.
“Fire lines around this fire are over 121 miles long,” he said, elaborating on the array of aircraft, including water tankers flying missions in from Florida, and helicopters battling the blaze. “We’ve got a tremendous air show here.”
Outside the building where Perdue and Farris spoke, the air was clouded with wood fire smoke. As reporters flew on Georgia National Guard helicopters from Atlanta to Waycross, they began seeing blue-white smoke in the sky 50 miles before they arrived in the city of 15,000, where residents have been breathing the smoke and threatened by the fire for two long weeks.
Perdue said he may declare a state of emergency for the region to make the state eligible for more federal funds. The Federal Emergency Management Agency already will fund most of the cost of fighting the blaze.
Perdue said he didn’t know how much the fires will ultimately cost the state, and how much of that will be reimbursed by the federal government, whose firefighters are battling parts of the Sweat Farm Road Fire that have reached the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge.
“We’ll do what it takes, and we’ll do the accounting later,” Perdue said. “When you’re fighting a fire [is] not the time to balance your checkbook.”
Even more troubling, state officials believe perhaps six wildfires that erupted in recent days are the work of arsonists.
A firefighter who was overtaken by flames was almost killed Saturday night by a blaze investigators think was started by arsonists in woods behind a staging area on U.S. 1 east of Waycross, where firefighters gather before going to battle in 12-hour shifts.
Schools and roads have been closed around Waycross and Ware County because the biggest fire has been buffeted by winds and has switched directions many times as it continues to scorch thousands of acres of pine timberlands.
Farris said the fires are behaving in ways firefighters have never seen. “Normally we can get on the flanks of the fire and pinch the fire in,” he said. “But we’re having trouble even fighting the flanks of this one.”