Wildfires in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia triggered a code orange alert from the Chattanooga Air Pollution Control Bureau this week as firefighters battled a blaze along the bluffs above River Canyon Road near the Hamilton-Marion county line.
The smoke is coming from fires that started earlier this week in Walker County and have since been contained, and another sparked Wednesday in Marion County in Prentice Cooper State Forest, according to the state division of forestry. Fire crews were at the site in Marion County on Thursday, along with a firefighting helicopter from the Tennessee Army National Guard.
“Right now it’s mapped at about 80 acres, and it’s about 40% contained,” Megan Carpenter, spokesperson for the state agency, said in a phone interview. “Containment for us is basically how we stop the spread of the fire. So to do that — metaphorically speaking — we throw a lasso around the fire so it can’t get away.”
To create fire lines, firefighting teams use everything from bulldozers to hand tools to fortify fire defenses. Carpenter said sometimes the service will use natural structures to contain fires.
“We’re looking to create lines around the fire that prevent it from moving any further in any direction, and then we’ll worry about what’s on fire inside the line,” she said.