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Wildfires In Georgia Said To Have Been Set By Man Attempting To Gain Facebook Views

By Jessica Dafoe
Published on: 11:09 PST, Nov 11, 2016

There is a hunt for a man driving a dark blue SUV, who was last seen in the location where a number of fires began in Georgia. Authorities in North Carolina suspect arson is the cause of over 20 wildfires now burning in a national forest. In Kentucky, a “wannabe weatherman” is facing arson charges after police state that he admitted to starting a fire to draw attention to a selfie video on Facebook.

Jenkins Police Chief James Stephens spoke on the subject on Friday after the 21-year-old was jailed this week on a second-degree arson charge. The accused is Johnny Mullins.

“It’s really too bad because he’s not a bad kid — he’s just misguided. He likes to do Facebook videos and have people follow him on his ‘weather forecast,’ so that’s pretty much why he did what he did. He enjoyed the attention he got from the Facebook stuff. He didn’t realize how much danger he was putting other people in.”

There have not been any other arrests made for the rest of the fires that are viewed by authorities as suspicious. The drought across most of the South has made the usual humidity absent and has dried up wells and streams, which has caused the fires to catch on quickly and blaze without challenge.

The AP shares the effects of the fires and how they believed the fires became so widespread.

“Tens of thousands of acres have burned, about a dozen of the largest fires remain unconfined, and many people have had to evacuate their homes ahead of fast-moving flames. Law officers in Georgia’s Rabun County suspect that someone started a series of small roadside fires Wednesday that eventually merged into the much larger blazes firefighters were working to contain on Friday, said Justin Upchurch, the county’s assistant fire chief.”

Rabun County sheriff’s office has asked people to look out for the blue SUV last seen in the area of the fires. They have also been directing attention to a Facebook post and asking residents to get the word out to help find and “lock this criminal up!”

The region is only 50 miles from North Carolina’s Natahala National Forest, where there are now over 20 wildfires burning that have torched over 17,000 acres. The fires are being investigated for suspected arson, as forestry officials stated in a status update.

In addition, there have been 14 other wildfires burning on Cherokee Nation land in North Carolina and are also all under investigation by officials and law enforcement. A fire manager shared an update and noted that the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs is looking for information that can help determine how the fires began by encouraging anyone who may know something to use an available arson hotline.

There have been states of emergency declared in some of the areas that have been affected in order to gain a response to the crisis and state funding to address the blazes.

Over 5,000 firefighters and staff supporting the effort from across the nation have joined forces to assist. Approximately 40 aircraft are involved, and that includes three air tankers that are flying from Tennessee.

The publication relays the severity of the drought in Southern states.

“The national drought report shows 41.6 million people in parts of 15 Southern states living in drought conditions. The worst is in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee, but extreme drought also is spreading into the western Carolinas. Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina all have fierce fires.”

The largest fire was spreading quickly in the Cohutta Wilderness which is south of the Georgia-Tennessee border. There are nearly 300 people working to put out the fire that has consumed roughly 15 square miles, as the Forest Service states. Smoke that has resulted from the fires has caused the largest city in North Carolina to have high risk air quality with a Code Orange warning going out to the residents. This means that anyone with breathing problems may suffer from the air quality.

[Feature Image by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images]

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