Smoke On The……

Interstate. In this case, I-75 near the Georgia-Florida border. Authorities have again closed that highway because of dense smoke from a raging wildfire in the Okefenokee Swamp. A nasty fire, apparently.

Officials said Sunday that the wildfire that had raced through the Okefenokee Swamp in southeast Georgia and into Florida had charred more than 233,700 acres — or about 365 square miles — since it was started by lightning a week ago.

Authorities reopened 90 miles of Interstates 75 and 10 for a couple of hours Sunday morning after wind helped push the heavy smoke away from the highways. But they were later forced to close 35 miles of I-75 from the Florida-Georgia state line to Lake City, Fla., as well as a 40-mile stretch of I-10 in Florida, from Live Oak to Sanderson.

A 15-mile stretch of I-75 from Valdosta, Ga., to the Florida state line remained open Sunday.

About 570 residents were not being allowed to return to 150 homes evacuated between I-10 and the Florida-Georgia state line.

The fire started May 5 in the middle of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. It took just six days to grow larger than another wildfire that has burned nearly 121,000 acres of Georgia forest and swampland over more than three weeks. The small fire was started by a tree falling on a power line.

Just to put this in a bit of perspective, my family drove from Illinois to Florida about 9-10 years ago (sorry, can't remember exactly which trip it was; neither could my wife when I asked her. That time frame is right, but the exact dates are fuzzy.) and we ran into extremely dense smoke coming from a fire (or fires) raging in the Okefenokee swamp area right near the border area. At times the smoke was like driving in a heavy fog. This went on for many miles, too. Maybe a reader from that area can tell us all how frequent this sort of thing is. One thing I can vouch for, it isn't much fun to drive through.