If you're not on the front lines, it may be hard to visualize just how bad these wildfires have gotten. To give you an idea of their size and scope, here's a handy guide:
- Wildfires are burning in six states: North Carolina, which is the hardest hit, plus Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
- All told, there are more than 30 large fires that are still uncontained. Overall, 128,000 acres have gone up in flames — a land mass that's about nine times the size of Manhattan, more than four times the size of San Francisco... or the size of nearly 96,970 football fields.
- While that's a lot, there have certainly been much larger wildfires in past years. In August 2015, the Okanogan Complex Fire in Washington burned over 256,560 acres, making it the largest wildfire in Washington state history.
- More than 5,000 firefighters and support personnel are battling the flames. The firefighters have come in from all parts of the country to assist and authorities are using 24 helicopters to drop flame retardant on the fires.
- At least one person, a man on eastern Kentucky's Mountain Parkway, has died due to decreased visibility from the smoke. Kentucky State Police said Wednesday that about 14 others were injured in wrecks on both sides of the road.
- Meanwhile, in eastern Tennessee, an air quality alert was in place after more than200 were hospitalized in Chattanooga for shortness of breath and breathing difficulties.
- Officials believe many of the fires were started by arsonists: At least seven people have been arrested for arson in Tennessee this month and one has been arrested in Kentucky. In Alabama, at least two other incidents are being investigated for arson.
- Of those arrested, only one is a wannabe weatherman. Kentucky authorities charged a 21-year-old with second-degree arson after they say he admitted intentionally setting a fire to bring attention to his Facebook selfie videos, which he called "Weather Outlook" segments and recorded in front of various fires.
Over 550,000 acres burned in the Wallow Fire, In Arizona and New Mexico, almost 16,000 acres of the total was in NM. (2011)
The drought in the deep south of the USA is what allowed this to take off on them.
I was there for the Wallow Fire... it destroyed so many lovely areas! Alpine was a mess, and ruined so much of that unique area.
The elk managed it ok, and after the fire, they had real good green grass to graze..
It was just so sad to see so much turn BLACK...
Pravdaseeker