The latest of the fires occurred about 4:30 Saturday morning at #5 G Avenue in Chicopee.
"Upon arrival firefighters found a 1200-square foot-home with smoke and flames from the roof," Chief David Kimbrell said. "Personnel made an interior attack and were able to extinguish the fire quickly."
Kimbrell said it appears the fire started in the fire appears to have started in the ceiling wiring.
He said there were ten people living in the house and they were going to stay with neighbors until after daybreak. The Red Cross will be assisting them with clothes, etc., Kimbrell said.
He put the damage at around $60,000.
The other fire happened about 9:50 Friday in the carport of a house in the 5100 block of Arthur Court in Oakwood.
Chief Kimbrell says the cause of that fire started from a five-gallon bucket the homeowners used to discard cigarettes. Kimrbrell says there were other flammable materials in the bucket and heat from the discarded cigarettes ignited them and the flames spread to the interior of the carport itself.
"Firefighters located the breakers for the electrical to the carport and secured them, checked the interior of the home for carbon monoxide and returned the residence to the owners," he added. "They were able to stay in the home (since) all the damage was to the exterior carport."
Damage was put at $10,000.
On the roads, motorists all over north Georgia continued to battle ice. The Hall County Sheriff's Office reports a number of incidents Friday night and Saturday morning in which drivers skidded on icy spots - mostly on secondary roads - and ended up in the ditch.
It wasn't clear if a wreck on I-985 at Exit 22 in Gainesville was caused by icy roads. The only vehicle involved was the cab portion of a tractor-trailer. The 2:00 a.m. accident closed a section of the Interstate for a time. The driver was life-fllighted to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Lt. Keith Lingerfelt of the Gainesville Police Department says the driver was northbound on U.S. 129 (Athens Highway) when the vehicle left the road approaching Exit 22, sped across a grassy area "between the two bridges," across two lanes of the Interstate, ending up in the median.
Elsewhere in Georgia, Cobb County police got reports of roughly 300 crashes between 4 p.m. Thursday and about 3 p.m. Friday and there were at least 160 wrecks Friday in Forsyth County.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2010/1/226097