The Georgia Forestry Commission, with assistance from the Bulloch County Fire Department, has fought a wildfire across 400-plus acres of brushy woodland off Buie Driggers Road through the last week of July. Now the county commissioners will meet in emergency session at 1 p.m. Friday, July 31, to vote on this year’s second temporary outdoor burn ban.

Fire first flared up in the Buie Driggers Road area, east of Brooklet, on Wednesday, July 22, according to GFC and BCFD sources. The Forestry Commission brought in tractor-plow units – those bulldozers with a V-shaped blade in front and wheeled plow in back – to clear firebreaks and smother blazes, as well as some small tanker-pumper trucks.

At the peak of the firefight, the agency even had a helicopter and a plane drop water the first day or two, and a GFC plane has continued to monitor the fire.

At one point Monday, Bulloch County Public Safety and EMA posted an update on social media stating that the fire had extended to 389 acres and was 90% contained. But the acreage was later revised upward and the percentage of containment downward as flareups continued.

“We are continuing to monitor and mop the fire perimeter,” Rick Lane, the Georgia Forestry Commission’s Region 4 fire management officer, said Thursday afternoon.

“We had a small spot get out yesterday between 2 and 3 p.m., but it was just outside the firebreak, between two places where there was just a little bit of fuel, probably about the size of a pickup truck,” he said. “But we jumped on it pretty fast and got it contained.”

By “fuel” he means anything that could burn and continue the fire, such as dry brush, small trees, fallen limbs or pine straw.

As of Thursday, Day 9 of the fire, the total size of the burned-over area was estimated at 410 to 415 acres, he said, but the Georgia Forestry Commission was being very conservative with the containment estimate, having returned to a cautious “75%.”

Staying vigilant

Lane, who was still on the scene, noted that the GFC had four fire engines and five dozers onsite Thursday, with probably 15 to 20 of its personnel still assigned to the fire.

“We’ve had air patrol today, off and on. We’ve got a helicopter on standby if need be,” he said. “So yeah, everything is kind of holding. We’re just continuing to monitor and mop the fire edge, and we’re having some needle cast.”

“Needle cast,” he explained, refers to pine needles and other leaves falling from trees in the already burned-over area, causing some “reburning” in still-hot spots. So the forestry firefighters were “trying to stay on top of it,” and “keep all the edges cold.”

Weather believed to be culprit & cure

“We just need some rain,” Lane added. “The only thing that will really make a significant change is a rain event, with some volume of water, not just a sprinkle.”

A different weather event – lightning without significant rain – appeared to have started the Buie Driggers Road fire, according to officials. Georgia Forestry Commission investigators had determined that the fire started from a lightning strike pinpointed to a single tree, he confirmed.

As of Thursday, with the fire apparently much closer to dying out than last weekend, no homes or other structures had been reported damaged or destroyed and none were currently threatened. The GFC had used its patrol plane to “keep an eye on” some homes, which were all on the opposite side of Buie Driggers Road or another dirt road, to make sure no active fire spots popped up on that side, he said.

Speaking of the bulldozer operators and other GFC firefighters, Lane said, “These boys working out here in these woods eat a lot of dust and a lot of smoke without fresh air breathing packs on their backs” and deserve credit for protecting property and public safety.

BCFD’s role

During the firefighting effort, the Bulloch County Fire Department first sent some regular fire trucks to protect nearby structures, then deployed its tanker trucks for two purposes.

The main purpose was hauling water to refill the Forestry Commission’s tanker-pumper engines. As of Thursday, the Fire Department had delivered over 200,000 gallons of water in the eight days to help control the Buie Driggers Road fire, said county Fire Chief Benjamin Tapley.

The second way the BCFD used some of its trucks was by spraying water directly from the trucks, such as along the edges of the woods near the fire.

“When it’s just starting, we go to the structures and our primary job there is structure protection,” Tapley said. “Then when (the GFC) starts getting a handle on it and starts bringing their little engines … we just fill them up. We also have a couple of spray tankers. … We’ve been wetting down the sides of the roads along Buie Driggers and some of the little side roads, little hunting camp roads, using those. We assist Forestry with whatever they need.”

The county department also has a “brush truck” it can use directly against such fires when not too far off the road and had deployed it on Saturday, said Tapley. He had been in the county then but was interviewed by phone while away at training Thursday.

Smaller fires daily

Both the county Fire Department and the state Forestry Commission had responded to another, smaller brush fire in Bulloch on Wednesday and Thursday, July 29-30, while the larger fire was still not officially out.

That smaller fire was on Cleary Road, and Tapley gave the size of the area affected as 7.8 acres.

In July, the BCFD has been responding to small brush fires almost daily, or sometimes to more than one in a day, he said.

Pockets of drought

The proposal for a burn ban began with the Sheriff’s Office and county administration, but Tapley indicated that they consulted him.

“If you look at the two things that we look at, the Drought Monitor, which you can look online, we’re abnormally dry or have a moderate drought in our area, but when you go to the Georgia Forestry website, it actually says we’re a ‘4’ or a ‘4½,’” he said. “So that’s what we’re concerned about. Especially in some pockets in the southeastern part of the county, it’s extremely dry right now.”

A “4” on the GFC’s fire weather rating system would mean “very high” fire danger, while a “4.5” would be between that and “extreme.” However, some of these numbers are updated daily, with humidity and wind being factors, as well as rainfall or lack thereof.

Thursday’s rating for the GFC area served by the Metter monitoring station was a “3,” or “high.” For Pembroke, just south of the Bulloch-Bryan County line, and Richmond Hill, farther southeast in Bryan County, the number was “2” for “moderate.” But some of these areas had been rated “4” on previous days.

The National Weather Service database page for ZIP code 30458 – accessing information from the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport – showed a high temperature of 95 Thursday at 5:15 p.m., with a low 32% relative humidity. The high temperature had been 96.8 degrees the previous two afternoons, with humidity over 50% those days, but no rain this week.

The NWS extended forecast included no rain chance for Friday, but a 60% chance Saturday afternoon and night, then 50% Sunday morning, rising to 90% Sunday evening and continuing 50% to 70% Monday.

Limited ban

Bulloch County’s outdoor burn ban, if enacted, will apply the same rules and limitations as the temporary burn ban ordinance that was in effect from April 22 though May 12.

Until lifted by the commissioners, the ban would again prohibit open burning of yard debris. But it would not, in itself, bar controlled agricultural or forestry burns, which are regulated by the state and require permits anyway. Properly attended cooking fires in grills and fire pits will again be specifically exempted from the ban.