BRANTLEY COUNTY, Ga. — Brantley County officials say that the wildfire is now 45% contained.
They say it spans more than 22,000 acres at this time, though that number has remained consistent over the last few days.
Seth Hawkins, the public information officer with the Georgia Forestry, says that the rain the county expects tomorrow will allow them to start this upcoming week on the offense.
“If you’ve ever put out a campfire before, you know, just dumping one bottle jug of water on it isn’t enough,” Hawkins said. “You usually have to jug it, stir it, put a jug on there, stir it, and that’s essentially what we’re doing on a landscape scale out here.”
The Brantley County Sheriff’s Office posted to Facebook earlier today that the southern part of Browntown Road has been reopened to residents.
Browntown Road is one of the first places that were evacuated last Tuesday, April 21, a day after the Highway 82 Wildfire broke out.
Along the road were burned trees, scorched trailers and a couple of dogs covered in ash and soot.
One fireman, Brendan O’Reily, told Action News Jax that he’s been giving the animals left along Browntown Road food and water. He says there are many more animals there besides dogs.
Brantley County does not have its own Animal Protective Control Services, so animals belonging to residents who evacuated or strays have been getting posted to a variety of Facebook groups.
“Our firefighters, they’re doing their best to take care of the community, and those pets are part of this community as well,” Hawkins said.
Both Hawkins and Karen Gleason with the Southern Area Incident Management Team are warning residents that this fight is far from over.
“The fire still has heat all throughout the fire area, even though we might not have the flames, the heat is deep into the soil,” Gleason said. “The humidity goes down, and the temperatures go up, like we had this afternoon, you could get those flare-ups. That’s why we’re keeping crews on it.”
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