North Georgia Wildfire: Massive Blaze Reaches Nearly 20,000 Acres

A massive wildfire continued to roar through the forests of north Georgia on Monday, as hundreds of firefighters struggled to bring the ever-growing blaze under control.

The so-called Rough Ridge fire, started Oct. 16 by a lightning strike, had consumed 19,411 acres as of Monday morning, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

It is, by far, the largest of dozens of wildfires state, local and federal authorities have had to fight in recent weeks in a bone-dry Georgia.

At 10 a.m., the Rough Ridge blaze was only 20 percent under control, despite the efforts of more than 200 firefighters battling it with fire engines, helicopters and bulldozers.

The nearly month-old fire has burned primarily in the Cohutta Wilderness area of the Chattahoochee National Forest, near Georgia's borders with Tennessee and North Carolina.

The Rough Ridge blaze is the largest of a series of wildfires that have singed north Georgia in recent weeks.

The Georgia Forestry Commission said it has extinguished 21 wildfires recently. On Monday, it was continuing to battle three active fires on Lookout Mountain and another in Rocky Face.

The fires have found friendly conditions to thrive in, thanks to what the National Weather Service refers to as an "exceptional" drought situation in much of the state.

Those drought conditions are expected to persist through the rest of the year.

In metro and exurban Atlanta, a 54-county summertime burning ban has been extended in many areas as officials nervously eye the dry conditions. On Monday, Paulding County — where a wildfire last week burned through roughly 120 acres — expanded the ban to include campfires and other small-scale outdoor fires that had been allowed under the original ban.

A small amount of rain fell Sunday morning at the Chattahoochee National Forest. It slowed the Rough Ridge fire's progress briefly but wasn't nearly enough to bring it to a stop, officials said.

The fire is burning about 90 miles north of Atlanta. But a steady haze over much of the metro area has persisted for weeks, as winds from the north push wildfire smoke into the area.

Firefighters are using controlled burns in an effort to starve the wildfire of its fuel and force it toward fire breaks that have already been established.

They've encountered difficulty thus far in controlling naturally falling leaves, which are providing fresh fuel for the fire at locations with natural and man-made fire breaks.

The entire Cohutta Wilderness area of the national forest has been closed to the public.

Photo courtesy U.S. Forest Service