Thick smoke has settled over a wide area of the southern Appalachians, where dozens of uncontrolled wildfires are burning through decades of leaf litter, and people breathe in tiny bits of the forest with every gulp of air.
It is a constant reminder of the threat to many small mountain communities, where relentless drought and now persistent fires and smoke have people under siege.
“A lot of the ladies just went to tears and said this happens in other places, it doesn’t happen here,” pastor Scott Cates said as townspeople donated water, cough drops and other supplies for the firefighters at the Liberty Baptist Church in Tiger, Georgia.
Photo: AP
The fires do not sleep. They burn through the night, through the now-desiccated tinder of deciduous forests accustomed to wet, humid summers and autumns.
“It doesn’t die down after dark,” says firefighter captain Ron Thalacker, who came from Carlsbad, New Mexico, with a fire engine that now draws water from streams and ponds to spray on hotspots in Georgia’s Rabun County, near the epicenter of the southern fires.
Large, wind-driven fires that scorch pine forests in the western US often burn in the tree tops and mellow out at night, but these fires are clinging to the ground and actively burning 24 hours a day, said firefighter Chad Cullum of Billings, Montana.
More than 5,000 firefighters and support personnel, including many veterans of wildfires in the arid west, and 24 helicopters are battling blazes in the fire zone, which has spread from northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee into eastern Kentucky, the western Carolinas and parts of surrounding states.
Nationally, “there’s a pretty good ability to help out the south right now,” said Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman with the US Forest Service.
Reinforcements have arrived from at least 37 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, she said this week.
One man died in a motor vehicle accident on Wednesday on eastern Kentucky’s Mountain Parkway, where smoke decreased visibility.
Kentucky State Police said about 14 others were injured in a series of wrecks on both sides of the road.
Trooper Scott Ferrell said a coal truck driver died when he got out of his truck to check on a driver whose vehicle had hit the truck and then was hit by a third vehicle.
About 15 vehicles were involved in the chain reaction collisions that closed the highway for nearly 10 hours, Ferrell said.
More than 30 large fires remain uncontained, and overall, a total of 51,800 hectares has burned.
Firefighters got a lucky break when a fire reversed direction, turning away from the Trail of Tears, which marks the route where the Cherokee and other Indians were forcibly removed from their lands in the 1800s.
In national forests, following procedures approved by the tribes, heavy equipment is not allowed within about 230m of the trail bed unless life or property is threatened, US Forest Service spokesman Terry McDonald said.
Tim Free, a lifelong resident of Rabun County, broke down with emotion as he described how elderly neighbors are struggling with relentless smoke, so thick it blocks the sun.
“What we’re fortunate to have here is people who care about people,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese