Fresh Loaf

CLAYTON: Both superintendent candidates drop out after SACS calls them unqualified.

FREEFALLING: Ron Sailor Jr. fired by his church for secretly taking out a $250,000 mortgage on it.

SHORTFALLING: Shirley Franklin considers property-tax hike to help cover budget shortfall.

FAT NADY SINGS: Xavier Nady homers twice as Braves lose wild, 12-inning home opener to the Pirates.

THIRD-GRADE MURDER PLOT: Nine special-education third-graders in Waycross caught with a steak knife and duct tape in plot to murder their teacher.

UNHAPPY TRAIL: Alabama’s Pinhoti Trail not likely to be added into Appalachian Trail, says Pinhoti Trail Association president.

ALLATOONA: Now at full pool for first time in three years, but drought still “extreme.”

PORT AND PARCEL: Port of Savannah was the fastest-growing port in the country in 2007, fueled largely by trade with China.

ONLINE WINE: Senate passes bill allowing online wine sales in Georgia; now it’s on the Teetotaler’s desk.

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The news out of Waycross a day or so ago was that the so-called Georgia Bay wildfire — the source of the morning haze and lovely campfire odor in Atlanta over the holiday weekend — was completely contained. What a relief that’s over, right? Well, not quite. First off, the news was slightly inaccurate. The fire was only 85 percent contained, as the Georgia Forestry Commission subsequently corrected. But, more importantly, contained is not the same as controlled.

Last Thursday, I visited the amusingly named Joint Information Center — a communications command post staffed by employees of various state agencies from Georgia and Florida — in downtown Waycross, where I received a crash course in Wildfire 101.

For starters, I discovered that no one down there is talking about actually putting the fires out. That’s because a very large portion of the fire is inside the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, which straddles the state line. Because fire is a natural part of a forest’s life cycle, the standard policy is to let wilderness areas burn. Also, it would be very difficult to get firefighting equipment into such a soggy, remote wilderness area. Therefore, the focus has been on keeping the fire contained inside the Okefenokee and battling it only when it intrudes onto private land. I was told several times by different experts that the only thing that could put the fires out is a significant rainfall. When that might happen is anyone’s guess.

And even then, the fire won’t go completely out, I was told. Because the soil inside the Okefenokee has a high organic content, similar to compost, the fire can continue to smolder and spread below ground, causing new outbreaks when it hits unburned areas.

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