BLUE RIDGE — About 400 area residents turned out in Blue Ridge Tuesday night for an open house at the incident command post for the Rough Ridge Fire.
That fire has been burning for a month on the Cohutta Wilderness Area on the Chattahoochee National Forest in the Fannin County area.
The Southern Area Incident Management Gold Team, currently coordinating the firefighting operations on the Rough Ridge Fire, is a group of people from a variety of agencies and states who come together on large-scale incidents such as wildfires, hurricanes and floods.
"The Rough Ridge Fire is 23,500 acres, and is 30 percent contained as of this afternoon," said Incident Public Information Officer Susie Heisey following Tuesday night's open house. "We're proud to report that we've increased containment to 30 percent, and we're going to see that continue to grow as the guys continue to do really great work out on the line."
Heisey and other PIOs on the management team have been fielding not only calls from local, state and national media outlets, but also from the public.
While many callers want to know the proximity of the fire to their homes, the next most prevalent topic is how the public can help firefighters.
Visitors to the open house heard from team members that federal firefighters really don't need donations because the incident management team can procure what firefighters need, and federal employees are on per diem and can use their daily allotments to dine at local restaurants and purchase what they need.
"We have had incredible support from the community, and tonight was just another demonstration of that with the large crowd here," Heisey said. "We've just been so blessed and are so thankful to have worked here in this community and hopefully helped this community with the Rough Ridge Fire."
The incident management function for the Rough Ridge Fire will transition to a different group later this week.
"We've been here almost 14 days," Heisey said. "That's our normal assignment is 14 days, so we will be transitioning to another Type 2 incident management team from Southern California. They'll be taking over command of the incident on Friday morning."
That incoming team still is finalizing plans for its arrival, where its incident command post will be located, and other details.
As those touring the active command post asked questions in the finance sector of the command post, they learned that the Rough Ridge Fire containment efforts have cost several million dollars over the month it has been burning.
"This incident at one point had nearly 300 people working on the fire, either firefighters out on the line or in a support capacity like on our management team, so costs do seem on paper to be pretty significant," Heisey said.
As of Tuesday, resources committed to the Rough Ridge Fire included three crews, two helicopters, eight engines and two dozers.
"We want people to know that this funding comes from a national funding source that's specific to wildland fire incidents, and it doesn't come from the Chattahoochee National Forest budget," Heisey said.
One member of the planning division of the management team is an incident meteorologist on site gathering on-the-ground data that is relayed to the team and disseminated to the public.
"There's a slight chance of rain on Saturday," Heisey said. "It won't be enough to really put this thing to bed. This fire really does need a measurable amount of rain on it, but we feel after we've got good containment on the lines where they are currently that it'll just be continue to monitor, patrol and mop up the existing containment lines."
No homes have been destroyed as a result of the Rough Ridge Fire.
"We are very fortunate to report that there have been no structures damaged and no evacuations on the Rough Ridge Fire," Heisey said.
To view the latest on the Rough Ridge Fire and the most up-to-date air quality report, visit inciweb at http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5078/.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2016/11/470579/north-georgias-rough-ridge-fire-now-30-percent-contained