The Georgia Forestry Commission, with assistance from the Bulloch County Fire Department, fought a wildfire across 400-plus acres of brushy woodland off Buie Driggers Road through the last week of July. Also hearing of other fires, the county commissioners met in emergency session Friday and imposed this year’s second temporary outdoor burn ban.

Fire had 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 last 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, July 30.

“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 July 30, 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, 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 seen as 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 – 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.

By Thursday and Friday, 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 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 a lot of 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,” deployed last weekend, to use directly against such fires when not too far off the road.

Smaller fires daily

Both the county Fire Department and the state Forestry Commission 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. No damage to homes or other structures and no injuries were reported there, either.

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

As of Friday morning, July 31, both agencies still had units assigned to the Cleary and Buie Driggers Road fire areas. They were likely to remain until significant rain arrives, said BCFD Training Chief Mitch Sikes.

Pockets of drought

The proposal for a burn ban began with the Sheriff’s Office and county administration, but they had consulted Tapley, who supported it.

“If you look at the two things that we look at, the Drought Monitor … 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, these numbers are updated daily, with humidity and wind being factors, as well as rainfall or lack thereof. Friday’s rating for the GFC area served by the Metter monitoring station, including Bulloch County in general, was a “3,” or “high.”

The National Weather Service database page for ZIP code 30458 – accessing data from the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport – showed high temperatures up to 97 degrees several afternoons this week, with no measured rain. The NWS forecast included no rain chance through Friday, but a 60% chance Saturday afternoon and night, Aug. 1, then 40% Sunday morning, rising to 80% Sunday evening and continuing 70% Monday.

Limited ban

The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners met in emergency session at 1 p.m. Friday. With only one agenda item, the meeting lasted less than 10 minutes. As County Attorney Jeff Akins noted, the burning restriction ordinance is the same as the previous one, which was in effect from April 22 through May 12.

Effective from August 1 and “until drought conditions improve and the Board of Commissioners formally rescinds” the ordinance, it again prohibits, “all open burning of yard debris, including limbs, grass and other vegetative matter” in the county’s unincorporated area.

But the temporary county law does 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 are, again, specifically exempted from the ban.

The vote to approve was 4-0, with four of the six regular voting commissioners present and Chairman David Bennett presiding. About a quarter inch of rain had fallen Wednesday night at Bennett’s home in the southeastern portion of the county, the first rain at that spot in over six weeks, he said.

“There’s some places around here where it is dry as a potato chip, and we don’t want to see things get to the point where we’re losing property and people’s homes because of burning,” he said.

Various county agencies, “including but not limited to” the BCFD and code enforcement officers, are authorized to enforce the ban. Cases will be assigned to Magistrate Court, with potential penalties to a maximum $1,000 fine or 60 days in jail.

Officials ask that citizens also avoid activities that might accidentally start fires. Commissioner Timmy Rushing noted that, if allowed to drag on road surfaces, the safety chains used to secure boat and utility trailers can generate sparks and cause fires.