MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Wildfires are still burning in south Georgia and northern Florida. One in Georgia has destroyed nearly 90 homes and forced people to evacuate. The region has been in a worsening drought for months, which has made it easier for wildfires to spread and harder for firefighters to contain. Emily Jones from member station WABE has been covering the fire. She's with us now. Good morning, Emily.
EMILY JONES, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: You were reporting yesterday on the ground in Brantley County, where some people have lost their homes. What did you see and hear there?
JONES: People are pretty shaken. They're not used to dealing with wildfires here. They've seen hurricanes but not really fires like this. So this is a community near Brunswick, but it's a pretty rural area. There's lots of forest land. The evacuation orders are popping up really suddenly because the fire is changing direction suddenly with the wind. And that's been really tough on people.
You know, they think they're OK one minute, and then before they know it, police or firefighters show up telling them that they need to get out. Yesterday evening, I was at a church where people are sheltering. And I spoke with Spring Gillis (ph) right after she arrived with her husband, her kids and her dog. They had just been ordered to evacuate.
SPRING GILLIS: It's just a - it's a heartbreaking thing to leave your home and not know what you're going to come back to.
JONES: And for her and most people who've evacuated, it may be a while before they find out if their homes are OK.
MARTIN: So what's the situation now? Have firefighters managed to get the wildfires under control?
JONES: They have not. There are two major fires, actually, that people are concerned about. And neither one is any more than about 15% contained. So one fire down by the Florida border is actually a lot bigger, but it's farther from where people live, so there hasn't been as much damage or as many evacuations. Actually, some folks down there who had to evacuate earlier in the week have been able to return home. That is not the case in Brantley County, where I was yesterday. That fire has kept moving quickly, and it keeps threatening new areas.
MARTIN: And we mentioned that the region has been dealing with a major drought. How much is that a factor in these fires?
JONES: It's a huge factor. It is about as dry as it has ever been here. In the last six months, Georgia got the least rainfall that we've had since we started keeping records in the 1890s. It's more than a foot below the normal rainfall, and that makes it a lot easier for fires to spread. It's usually pretty wet down here, and that really helps keep fires in check.
Right now, the trees and the underbrush are really dried out. The water levels are so low in all of the rivers and in the swamp. This time of year actually is the normal fire season for Georgia, but that just does not mean the same thing that it means out West. Normally, we see fires start. But they just don't get very far because there is plenty of water and rainfall to stop them.
MARTIN: And before we let you go, Emily, climate change, is that contributing to this?
JONES: It's hard to say how much of an impact climate change is having on a specific event like this while it's still ongoing. But in general, we know climate change is making many severe weather events more extreme. So when we get rain, it can be a lot more rain. When we have a severe drought, climate change can make it more intense. And I know from my own reporting that communities here in the southeast are having to prepare for weather events that they're not used to.
MARTIN: That is Emily Jones from WABE. Her reporting is part of a partnership between WABE and nonprofit news outlet Grist. Emily, thank you so much. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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