South Georgia residents might notice smoky skies when they step outside.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because crews are working to fight a wildfire in the Okeefenokee Wildlife Reserve.<\/p>\n
The fire has\u00a0spread across nearly 20,000\u00a0acres.<\/p>\n
Smoke has filled\u00a0the roads\u00a0and the air,\u00a0small flames,\u00a0and a few larger ones,\u00a0can be seen almost everywhere.<\/p>\n
WALB\u2019s Caitlyn Chastain got\u00a0a look inside the more than 18 thousand acre fire at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has spread fast in the past couple of days. Particularly in the afternoon,\u201d explained Information Officer Susan Granbery.<\/p>\n
A lightning strike started the fire on April 6, and the blaze quickly grew.<\/p>\n
Know that we\u2019re doing everything we can. We\u2019ve got highly skilled firefighters that are just working very hard to keep everybody\u2019s homes and property safe,\u201d Granbery said.<\/p>\n
Currently,\u00a0nearly 200 people\u00a0are helping contain the fire, including a helicopter surveying the area\u00a0and multiple crews on the ground.<\/p>\n
Since natural fires are good for the swamp,\u00a0right now, firefighters are only putting out the fire on private property,\u00a0and containing the fire that\u2019s burning in the wildlife refuge.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are going to continue to see smoke,\u201d said Granbery.\u00a0\u201cThey are going to continue to see the heavy equipment and firefighters coming into town.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE\u203a\u203a<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Georgia residents might notice smoky skies when they step outside. That\u2019s because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":15051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15052,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15050\/revisions\/15052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}