Honey Prairie Fire still burning after 9 months

It has been awhile since I have written about the Honey Prairie Fire, you may recall that I first wrote about that fire in May 2011, with updates in June 2011, and reported that the NJ Forest Fire Service sent a crew to help out with the fire last June, see this article. I embedded some videos from youtube showing fire ops at the fire in July 2011. My last update was in late-Sept. 2011 when the fire had burned over 308,00 acres and was at 76% containment.

I was curious about what was happening with the fire, so I went and checked inciweb today. According the last update on inciweb (Dec 15, 2011), available here, the Honey Prairie Fire has burned over 309,000 acres since it started from a lightening strike in late April 2011. The fire is remains at 76% containment, and as of mid-December  2011,12 firefighters were assigned to the fire. Quoting from the Dec. 15, 2011 inciweb update:

The Honey Prairie Continues to burn deep down into the dry peat on the west side of the refuge. .... There is no visible flame but is still smoking. ... The water table needs to come up high enough to extinguish the fire. The US Drought Monitor indicates that the area remains in severe drought. In the last 30 days, a weather station near the fire recorded 2.6 inches of rainfall.

As you can see from the graphic below, the drought is still persisting in much of Georgia. Note to that drought persists in Texas where massive wildfires burned last summer. Droughts are developing in southern CA and portions of the southwest. I'll write a little more about droughts on Wednesday.

obtained from http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/seasonal_drought.html on Feb. 6, 2012

More info on the Honey Prairie Fire on the web:
Inciweb page on the Honey Prairie Fire
USFWS - Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge -- Honey Prairie Complex Fires
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on Facebook (public)