FOLKSTON, Ga. -- Mark Ruggiero has 400 firefighters, 56 engines, 49 bulldozers and nine helicopters under his command. And that still won't be enough to snuff out the wildfires that have shrouded the Okefenokee Swamp in smoke and flames for the past month.

Ruggiero's only hope is a big rainstorm. While showers are in the forecast for Thursday, it could be months before the area gets the soaking it needs.

Ruggiero, who has been directing firefighters at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, said the fire will burn in the swamp until there is a tropical depression that will drop nine to 10 inches of rain.

Rick Connell, a long-term fire analyst with the U.S. Forest Service, said that given the extended forecast, the area probably will not get a drenching until hurricane season peaks -- perhaps between August and September.

The worst wildfires in Georgia since the 1950s have blackened more than 600 square miles of dried-out forest and swampland in drought-stricken southeastern Georgia and northern Florida. Commercial timber losses are estimated to be at least $30 million.

Hundreds of residents from cities up to 100 miles apart have fled their homes; schools in Ware and Charlton counties were closed many days; and roads in the area remain closed because of fire or thick smoke.

Inside the swamp, it is so dry that water levels are as much as 2 feet below normal and flames have ample fuel of gallberry, wax myrtle, palmetto and other shrubs and grasses. Thick layers of peat can smolder and burn like charcoal, even several feet beneath the ground.

After One Month, Fires Still Burn

On April 16, a power line falling in dry brush south of Waycross started a fire that has burned 147,142 acres in Ware and northern Charlton counties and destroyed more than a dozen homes.

This blaze, called Sweat Farm-Big Turnaround Fire, was called the largest fire in Georgia since record keeping began in 1957. As of Thursday morning, forestry officials estimated it was 15 percent contained.

Then came the Bugaboo Scrub Fire, started by a stroke of lightning deep inside the Okefenokee Swamp on May 5. In eight days, it has spread over 260, 322 acres on both sides of the state line to become the biggest fire in the history of both Georgia and Florida.

The only mandatory evacuation remaining in south Georgia was changed to precautionary Monday night, meaning people in Reeves Landing and Moniac could return home but need to be prepared to leave again with 12- to 24-hour notice if conditions change.

"Everybody's being told not to let their guard down, don't unpack," said Laura Polant, a fire information officer in Fargo. "Residents are still being told to be prepared to leave, because the call can come at any time."

Deep in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a crew of firefighters set brush ablaze Tuesday to help stem the growth of the largest wildfire in the Georgia's history.

The controlled burn -- called a "burnout" -- was along a road in the refuge about two miles from the main blaze.

"This is one of the biggest tools that we have to put the biggest fires out," said Craig Daugherty, a firefighter from New Mexico. "It robs the main fire of fuel."

Firefighters walk along the brush holding torches that drip fire. The brush is so dry that flames quickly shoot 20 to 30 feet in the air, sending hot embers and thick black smoke into the sky.

In Georgia, portions of state roads 94 and 177 remain closed, although state Road 177 south of U.S. Highway 1 has reopened. U.S. 441 is closed at the Florida border.

The Wildlife Refuge and Georgia's Steven C. Foster State Park inside it remained closed, but Okefenokee Swamp Park has reopened.

The airport in Folkston, Davis Field, remains closed.

Last week, haze from the fires has traveled as far south as the Miami area, about 340 miles away. This week, the National Weather Service said changing winds have carried the smell of smoke from the wildfires in south Georgia to Atlanta and its suburbs.

The odor of smoke was also strong Wednesday in Augusta in east Georgia. The smoke also has drifted hundred of miles into central North Carolina, triggering emergency calls to fire departments throughout the region.