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11 Alive Atlanta
NASA
Smoke from wildfires in the North Georgia wildfires continued to drift into the metro Atlanta area on Thursday.
Residents across the metro begin seeing -- and smelling -- the smoke on Wednesday.
11Alive Chief StormTracker Chris Holcomb explained that there are multiple sources of the smoke.
Fires in Rabun County, which authorities suspect was started by an arsonist, wree responsible for much of the smoke Wednesday. A fire in Rouge Ridge in northwest Georgia that has burned more than 10,000 acres is also blowing smoke our way.
The extreme dry weather, low humidity, and current fire danger rating make outdoor burning an unsafe act, according to Johns Creek Fire Marshal Chad McGiboney. In that community, authorities temporarily prohibited outdoor burning due to current weather conditions.
NASA
Wildfires in the southeastern United States are usually small and do not produce much smoke compared to the big blazes in the western United States, Canada, or Russia. But a cluster of fires in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky in November 2016 defied that trend.
On November 7, 2016, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASAs Terra satellite observed thick plumes of smoke streaming from forests in the southern Appalachians. Extreme drought fueled the outbreak of fires, and strong winds spread smoke broadly across the Southeast.
The ongoingand in some areas record-breakingdrought began in May 2016 and intensified throughout the summer. By November, data from the U.S. Drought Monitor showed exceptional droughtthe highest level on the scaleacross parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. All of the American Southeast, except for coastal areas, faced at least moderate drought.