Tag: Honey Prairie Fire

The Honey Prairie fire, burning in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and Florida, made a big push to the north on Friday, prompting an aggressive aerial attack, but rain on Saturday slowed the spread. After the forecast of damaging winds and hail, fire managers relocated the aerial resources. Thunderstorms with strong, gusty winds and lightning moved through the area Saturday, bringing an average of 1/2″ to 1″ of rain across the fire with a few areas receiving 1″ to 1.5″. Incident fire crews quickly contained one detected lightning strike that burned approximately half an acre.

Here is an excerpt from an article at Jacksonville.com that was written on May 13. (The fire has now burned 128,861 acres as of Sunday morning.)

The effort to contain the Honey Prairie Wildfire in the Okefenokee Swamp has turned into an aerial battle.

Five helicopters and airplane tankers were dumping water onto the northern edge of the 104,936-acre fire in hopes of preventing its spread to Billys Island, one of the highest and driest areas in the swamp where it could race north, Georgia Forestry Commission spokesman Byron Haire said.

Officials directing operations had decided to let the fire burn inside the swamp and contain it once it reached the boundaries of the 430,000-acre refuge. But Friday turned out to be a day when the fire taxed that strategy riding southerly winds into places officials didn’t want it to go.

The incident response team used helicopters to douse the leading edge of the fire to prevent it from going around or jumping the Suwannee Canal and areas of open water, Haire said.

But the fire jumped the Suwannee Canal, and Thursday night a spot fire developed on the southern end of Billys Island, he said.

Below is a map showing the progression of the Honey Prairie fire as of Saturday:

Two large fires continue to burn through swamps in the southeastern United States, providing serious challenges for firefighters who have difficulty safely accessing the fire perimeters to take suppression action. Sometimes fires in swamps burn for months, or until heavy, long-duration rains fall, in spite of the best efforts of firefighters.

The Pains Bay fire is burning on the coast of North Carolina in the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. It grew by 571 acres on Tuesday bringing the total to 21,563 blackened acres. Burnout operations on the northeast side continued on Wednesday.

Here is a map showing the perimeter of the Pains Bay fire (provided by firefighters), along with symbols representing heat detected by satellites.

The Honey Prairie fire, mostly in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, grew by 13,174 acres on Tuesday bring the total to 96,408 acres in both Georgia and Florida.

The Florida Division of Forestry staff along with support from local timber companies, Georgia Forestry Commission and Refuge resources assigned to the fire had a very busy day Tuesday along the southern flank near the Florida- Georgia border. Fuel reduction firing operations of forested areas North of Florida Highway 2 were initiated to expand the size of this existing fire break.

The northeastern portion of the fire is approximately one mile from Chesser Island and 12 miles from Folkston, Georgia. The westernmost flank of the fire is approximately eight miles east of Fargo, Georgia.

This map of the Honey Prairie fire also shows the perimeter of the fire (provided by firefighters) along with symbols representing heat detected by satellites.

Here is a photo of the fire taken the day after it started on April 28.

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.

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.

====

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