Residents anxious to return home

Hundreds of residents remain evacuated around Waycross this evening as fire continues to threaten homes near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. As many as 1,000 people were forced to leave Monday when a huge fire quickly spread over 50 square miles in and around Ware County.

Fire-fighters made progress on several fronts today, but it’s still not clear when residents will be allowed back, according to James Ginn, Ware County’s public information officer.

“It’s a rough situation for people and we know a lot of them want to return home,” Ginn said. “But we need to urge them at this time that it’s still a very dangerous situation and they need to stay out just a little while longer.”

On roads going out of Waycross to the south and east, toward the refuge, mile after mile passed with nothing but blackened brush and trees. The ground smoldered everywhere and visibility was low. In some locations, fires burned unattended. In other areas, near homes, helicopters dropped what the area has desperately needed since Monday… water from the sky.

Carol Allen’s home came within mere yards of the fire. Standing on her front porch, noting the flame-scorched trees on three sides of her land south of Waycross, she said she became anxious to get back once she found out how close her home was to the fire’s front edge.

“We were in town and everybody was calling us saying, ‘You’re house is burning down, you’re house is burning down,” Allen said. “And we had no way of knowing exactly what was going on.”

As it stood this afternoon, only seven homes had been destroyed in the largest fire, around the Okefenokee Swamp. In contrast, over 25,000 acres of land had burned from that same blaze. Jay Hillis, Fire Chief in Pooler, near Savannah, said he and 30 other fire-fighters arrived from Chatham County yesterday to help make sure those ratios stayed as low as possible.

“Primarily, our objective was structure protection, homes, buildings and any structures out there,” Hillis said. “We’re pretty much letting the wild land burn and protecting homes and structures.”

Firefighters were here from Douglas, Hahira and elsewhere across the region while some residents acted on their own to help reduce the fire danger. At a tourist attraction, Obediah’s Okefenok, a restored 1800’s homestead, owner Billy Brantley had water hoses on and was wetting down the wooden decks that take visitors into the swamp. He says, his animals, including foxes, bobcats and deer, are doing okay.

“They’re pretty calm and we’re watching them real close,” Brantley said. “But, we didn’t have time to make an evacuation of the animals. We just had to go with the flow.”

The fire started when a tree collapsed onto a power line. No one has been hurt so far, although several firefighters have been treated for minor injuries. Across South Georgia, where several fires are burning, 18 homes have been destroyed.