Honey Prairie fire adds 81,000 acres in six days

The Honey Prairie fire in south Georgia increased by 19,521 acres on Monday and by 10:00 a.m. Tuesday added another 9,556 acres, for a total of 90,990 acres. The fire has grown by 81,310 acres since Wednesday, May 4.

The map of the fire shows that it has burned across the state line from Georgia into Florida. It is still burning primarily within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge but has crossed that boundary too, moving out of the refuge on the east side.

Map Honey Prairie fire 1000 May 10
Map of the Honey Prairie fire, 10:00 a.m., May 10, 2011

It is being managed by a Georgia Type 2 Incident Management Team under a unified command between the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Florida Division of Forestry has made preparations for the fire. Thinking that a fire would come out of the swamp eventually, last fall they conducted some prescribed fires between Highway 2 and a railroad north of the highway, removing fuel that would be available to a fire.

In June, 2002, I was on the Blackjack Bay fire that burned in the same area, and it also crossed the border into Florida. Here are a couple of photos of that fire.

Blackjack Bay fire 6-2002
Blackjack Bay fire June, 2002
Blackjack Bay fire June, 2002
Blackjack Bay fire June, 2002

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A May 11 update on the fire can be found here.

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

11 thoughts on “Honey Prairie fire adds 81,000 acres in six days”

  1. >for that event was on the Okie NWR
    >and we looked at the large fires of
    >1998 & 2002

    Sweat Farm Road / Bugaboo Creek / Turnaround in ’07.

    This one in ’11.

    Maybe we need to just set up a big line of irrigation sprinklers around the perimeter.

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  2. In February 2005 we did a “Managing the Unexpected” workshop with Karl Weick and Kathleen Sutcliff; our “Staff Ride” for that event was on the Okie NWR and we looked at the large fires of 1998 & 2002. All of the details are on the Lessons Learned Center web site.

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  3. Nice photos Bill, like the old GPS! Of course in 2007 595,000 ac were burned in OKE and it crossed the state line in about the same place and burned almost to Lake City FL.(combined Bugaboo / Turnaround Complex). The Southern area T-1 Red Team, Ruggiero (two rotations) The SW T1 Team, Oltrogge and the Southern area T-1 Blue Team Quesnbery in Fl along with the Southern area T-2 team Wilder and the GA State T-2 Team spent time on this complex during 2007.

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      1. Good question, I have not heard much out of that fire, I can say on the current OKE fire Honey Prairie, conditions are different then they were in 07, then we were at the 95 pecentile as this year we are at only 90 percntile, plus fuels are lighter in some areas on the (SEB) edge and in the swamp due to 07 but fire is good for OKE, aside from all the politics around OKE!

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  4. Management makes and plans the budget, management should build reserves for exactly that scenario. If “We don’t have the budget for that…” then someone needs to fix the budget!

    And, then they need to go slap the ignorant SOB that suggests a 50 or 500 acre fire in that swamp, under drought conditions, isn’t a dire emergency, so that funds that are in the budget to pay for all of the firefighters, and equipment, and airplanes and helicopters that are fixing to be in action could be used before causing all of the problems that are caused by allowing the fire to grow to the size it has now.

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    1. Fires of the size in the swamp like you describe happen every so many years, and, in many ways it is beneficial to the ecosystem for this to happen. The prevent fires over a long period of time only invites the inevitable, a huge, uncontainable wildfire with lots of fuel and too much to contain. Fire every so often is nature’s way of clearing out the underbrush and fuel on the forest or swamp floor. Think of it as a housecleaning of sorts.

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      1. I grew up in the woods 15 miles south of the Okefenokeee Swamp, I understand it’s ecosystem all to well. I also understand that allowing it to burn during a drought is not necessarily cool, since fires during these dry times tend to get out of hand. I know that all to well too, because I was here when they evacuated everyone during the Bugaboo fire. When it hit the woods behind our place it had a 45% ignition rate a mile ahead of the fire. 45% of all hot embers dropping ahead of that fire, started new fires up to a mile ahead of the existing fire. That is not something you battle, that is something you rein in when it is VERY SMALL, and they are saying the swamp is drier now than it was at that time.

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  5. You’d think they would figure out sooner or later that even if you have to call in the helicopter with the big water bucket to put out a seemingly insignificant little fire in the middle of the swamp, that it is much better to do so, than to let the damm thing grow to several hundred thousand acres before it comes out of the swamp, and hope you can contain it then!!

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  6. Same kind of fire we’ve got going in NC. The south is hot right now, between NC, GA, west TX, and south FL!

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