BRANTLEY COUNTY, Ga. — As the Brantley County Public School District prepares to welcome back students to the classroom on Monday, we’re learning more about what caused this fire in the first place.
During a visit to South Georgia last week, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said they believed the fire was caused by a balloon landing on a power line.
Today, the Georgia Forestry Commission confirmed that belief, posting on Facebook in part:
“...our investigators have clear evidence that the fire was caused by a Mylar balloon coming into contact with a power line, creating an electrical arc that ignited surrounding vegetation.”
“This one’s a new one to me and most of us never heard of a balloon causing this,” said Seth Hawkins, Public Information Officer for Georgia Forestry Commission. “It’s very unfortunate. It’s just a demonstration of how dry it out here, and how it just took one little spark.”
Hawkins says the fire started east of Highway 110 and north of Highway 82, near the southwest corner of the fire.
“They were able to, through pictures through firsthand accounts from the initial attack, pinpoint exactly where the fire started at and go to that and make that their crime scene per se,” Hawkins said.
We asked Hawkins if they knew where the balloon came from.
“It’s hard to say, our law enforcement did a little research those balloons can actually reach three miles in the atmosphere apparently, and then transport winds can take them hundreds of miles in any direction,” Hawkins said. “So, there’s no way to pinpoint where it came from.”
We asked Hawkins if he had the pictures of the balloon for us to see. He says he cannot share those images or show them to us because it is still an active investigation.
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