SAVANNAH—A wildfire that burned vast acreage and at one point threatened hundreds of homes near the Georgia-Florida state line has been nearly extinguished after steady rains soaked the Okefenokee Swamp over the past week.
The team fighting the blaze now considers it 90-percent contained and the flames that burned nearly 240 square miles (620 sq. kilometers) since April have been reduced to scattered piles of smoldering debris from trees cut down in the fire area’s southeast corner, said Susan Heisey, supervisory ranger for the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.
“The water levels in the swamp are still below average, but the rains are really saturating the uplands,” Heisey, a spokeswoman for the firefighting team, said Monday, adding that the potential for the fire to grow again in any serious way seemed “extremely low.” ”Just based on the predicted weather forecast for this week alone, I don’t think there’s any real potential for this to go anywhere.”
The swamp was parched by drought when a lightning strike April 6 sparked a rapidly growing fire. More than three-fourths of the charred acreage was confined to undeveloped public land.
However, more than 2,000 rural residents of neighboring Charlton County were ordered to evacuate after flames escaped the southeast corner of the swamp May 6.