BRANTLEY COUNTY, Ga. – Selena Turner has lived in her Brantley County property off State Road 259 for nearly 30 years.
Tuesday morning, she still wasn’t sure what was left of it.
She and her son’s family and their three dogs had to relocate for five days after mandatory evacuations were ordered for the Highway 82 Fire.
READ: Full coverage of Brantley County wildfire
Turner’s son was able to get back to his property off Highway 110 on Monday night, when authorities started issuing passes for residents to re-enter evacuation zones.
But Turner hadn’t yet seen her own home when she stopped Tuesday morning to speak with News4JAX reporter Briana Brownlee and photojournalist Jesse Hanson.
Turner wanted to thank the pair for a report they shared last week from a small neighborhood cemetery.
Brownlee and Hanson were able to show that despite the ground being scorched throughout the cemetery, all the gravestones were left unharmed.
“That was my grandson’s lot behind you,” an emotional Turner told Brownlee. “My daughter is in Atlanta, and she saw your interview, and she got to see her baby’s cemetery lot, that it was fine.”
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Turner said she appreciated the news crews, volunteers, firefighters and everyone who has shown up to help her community.
“We appreciated y’all so much for that coming and putting y’allself in danger and all these people who’ve come here to help, and then the support to help feed them and everything,” Turner said. “People just don’t know how much we appreciate everybody coming to our little neck of the woods to help us.”