On April 28th a lightning strike in the swamp near Honey Island started a fire which as of 6:00 PM today has burned over 39,016 acres! Needless to say we are on full alert and are ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. There is a lot of smoke everywhere!
Today the refuge visitor services were closed and movement on the refuge has been restricted to emergency vehicles only. In fact they have wrapped the Chesser Island Homestead in fire-wrap and have sprinklers running on the Boardwalk in case the fire turns our way. So just in case, the 3 remaining volunteer vehicles here are all packed and ready to leave if the worst happens.
Check out the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge web-site and at the right click on the Honey Prairie Fire to see the progress of the fire by the day. There are also some really great pictures there too.
As the Volunteer Village is located near the Heli-Base, we see all the helicopters landing and taking off to keep tabs on the fire’s progress. Because the fire is out in the swamp there is no way to form a fire-break as would be standard in a land fire, they tried water drops but so far has not done any good. But tonight the winds have changed and it seems to be turning the fire in on itself so hopefully it will burn itself out!
Wildfires are common in the swamp but this year the drought conditions are really bad, so the fire crew has been on constant alert. The fire crew here on the refuge is top-notch and have been on top of the situation, day and night!
Volunteering at Okefenokee NWR has always been a lot of fun but this we could do without!!! But we love a good adventure and this is one we will be talking about for a long time to come.
Just Us Kids……………….being careful!!
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