Fire Information Meeting in Rabun County Monday, November 21, 2016

Beginning at 8:00 a.m. Tuesday Morning November 22, the following roads will be closed for public and firefighter safety:
• Patterson Gap Road from Betty’s Creek Road to Poplar gap (USFS road)
• Betty’s Creek Road from Patterson Gap to the North Carolina state line (Rabun County)
• Mulberry from the North Carolina state line to Pagonia Drive/Beasley Gap (Macon County)




Residents of Rabun and Macon Counties attended an informational meeting on the evening of Monday, November 21st, held by the Incident Management Team led by Noel Livingston and Cooperating Agencies in Georgia and North Carolina. The current fire size was last measured by an infrared flight as being 13,542 acres and the fire lines being constructed will probably limit the fire size to around 30,000 acres, with the number one priority being the protection of life and property.

Macon Media was the only media outlet from Macon County present at the meeting and a video of the entire meeting is embedded below. The excerpt above details the expected extent of the fire. Personnel reported the fire has been moving at half to three quarters of a mile per day in locations where no fire lines have been constructed.  The southern lines around the fire are secure and the overall strategy has been to let the fire spread into the wilderness in the north while, due to limited resources, firefighters focused on saving homes on the western end of the fire, most notably near Tate City.

The next focus will be on protecting homes on the east end of the fire, near Bettys Creek Patterson Road and Mulberry Road, where some preliminary construction of fire lines has already been started. The teams that saved the homes near Tate City will be moved into those areas starting on Tuesday, Nov 22nd.

Another Fire Information Meeting may be held in Macon County after Thanksgiving if conditions warrant.




**11-22-2016 at 1:36 am** 

The USFS have uploaded new data regarding the Rock Mountain Fire, including a new map based on an Infrared mapping flight referenced during the public meeting. A PDF of the results is embedded below.

Note that the estimated fire size is now 14,757 acres. This information hasn't been added to  the Inciweb site as of the time it has been posted here.

11-22-2016 Rock Mountain Fire IR Map 11x17 Portrait by Bobby Coggins on Scribd

When more detailed maps are uploaded, they will be added here as well.

Map showing fire progression by day. [Click for full size image]

Operations Map of Rock Mountain Fire with annotations added via sticky notes for frequency list and location of the Jones Creek Fire. The sticky notes cannot be read unless the map is downloaded.

Ops Map Rocky Mountain Fire 11-22-2016 by Bobby Coggins on Scribd