Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of US Forest personnel, firefighters, and support personnel are expected to stream into Rabun County this weekend as efforts continue to bring wildfires under control.
The US Forest Service is setting up its North Georgia Command Center in Rabun. They will be working 16-hour shifts and will be based there for at least the next two weeks, according to Forest Service officials.
Hotels and campgrounds have already been contacted for reservations. Empty fields have been made available for some camping and rest areas.
Law officers in Georgia’s Rabun County suspect that someone started a series of small roadside fires Wednesday that eventually merged into the much larger blazes firefighters were working to contain on Friday, said Justin Upchurch, the county’s assistant fire chief.
The Rabun County sheriff’s office urged people to be on the lookout, saying the SUV was last seen in the area of the fires. The office was more emphatic in a separate Facebook post, asking residents to spread the word “and help us lock this criminal up!!!”
The area is less than 50 miles from North Carolina’s Nantahala National Forest, where more than 20 wildfires that have burned more than 17,000 acres are all “being investigated for suspected arson,” forestry officials announced in a status update.
There were 14 other wildfires burning on Cherokee Nation land in North Carolina, all under investigation by local law enforcement. A fire managers’ update noted that the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs is seeking information about fires on Indian lands through an arson hotline.
The U.S. Forest Service announced Friday that the entire Cohutta Wilderness, which stretches across the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia and the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee, has been closed to the public due to multiple fires there.
