BRANTLEY COUNTY, Ga. – Like residents across Brantley County, Lesia Grogg woke up to the acrid smell of burning trees on Tuesday morning at her home in Atkinson.
But the Georgia Forestry Commission had the small pocket of wildfire under control, so she headed off to work.
No reason to worry.
Then the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page posted a warning around 10 a.m. about heavy smoke limiting driving visibility. That would be a nuisance on the way home, but nothing to panic about.
Then the wind shifted.
Suddenly, the fire was 700 acres. Then 1,000.
By 11 a.m., barely an hour after the Sheriff’s Office made its post, Lesia was rushing home to save what she could. Her trailer on Brushy Creek Road is only a half-mile south of Highway 82, where the fire was burning.
“Only thing I got was my two animals,” Lesia said.
She didn’t have time to grab anything else—no clothes, no momentos, nothing—before firefighters rushed her off the property.
“The firemen were putting the water hose on the top of my roof on my trailer, and they made me leave,” Lesia said.
By the end of the day, the home she shares with her husband, her adult son and his fiancée was gone.
“It burned over 4,000 acres in a matter of hours as soon as the wind picked up,” Brantley County Manager Joey Cason said of the fast-spreading wildfire.
Lesia wasn’t the only one who faced a close call, either.
Cason said 47 homes were destroyed, and some families were evacuated with only minutes to spare.
Emergency personnel pulled them off their porch as the flames crept into their backyard.
“It was a very rapidly moving fire yesterday afternoon,” Cason said.
By 1 p.m., parents in Waynesville and Atkinson got an alarming alert: their young children were being evacuated from Waynesville Primary and Atkinson Elementary.
As they rushed to scoop up their kids at the Brantley County Middle School gym, many families wondered if they would have a home to take them to.
“When they left yesterday to go to work, they had no idea that this was going to happen,” Cason said.
Just after 3 p.m., the evacuation order went out to seven neighborhoods: Level 3 - Go.
By 5:30 pm., families on four more streets were told to “leave now.”
A family shared the video below with News4JAX showing the moments when they discovered there was nothing left of their Gallberry Road home.
Overnight, the fire grew to more than 5,000 acres and continues to spread west of Highway 259 on the south side of Highway 82 and west of Highway 110 on the north side of Highway 82 along the Satilla River.
All Brantley County Schools were closed Wednesday and again on Thursday for students and staff, and mandatory evacuations are in place in several areas (see the list here).
But even if your home isn’t currently in an evacuation zone, Cason said you need to be packed and ready to go because winds could shift the fire in mere moments.
A hard lesson dozens of families learned Tuesday.
And being on the other side of the river isn’t a guarantee of safety, either, Cason warned.
“Right now, going toward Highway 32 north is somewhat safe, but depending on winds, if the winds come from the east today, moving westward, this fire is right on the brink of the river and could jump the river,” Cason said. “We’re extremely concerned about it moving across the river.”
For current road closures & open shelters, click here.