Swamp on Fire ?

[Tom]

I was headed home from a job N.E. of Folkston, Ga. this evening and saw this column of smoke coming from the Okeefenokee Swamp.  We had smelled it all afternoon and saw lots of smoke in the sky, but couldn't tell where it was originating.

The rumor is that the swamp is on fire again.  Lots of times it happens and is put out without much "to do".  Sometimes the networks get hold of it and the nation hears about it.  

When one is really bad is when the fire gets into the muck and starts burning underground.  It could burn for years unless submerged by a rain storm, and some of the old-timers say that a swamp fire can burn under water.  (? ? ?)

[L. Wakefield]

   Tom, I think there's a way that could happen. If the ground itself is fairly bone dry, fire can get into roots and smoulder underground for a long time and for a long way before breaking out again. When they first told us that in scouts, I was skeptical, but wildfire fighting made me a believer when I saw it happening a few years ago. IF the root goes under the water in a layer of soil that is NOT containing water, I can see how it might pass right under the water and come out the other side.

   Now how on earth you'd get that dry soil to stay dry under the water I'm not sure unless there was a layer of rock or clay intervening. Wattaya got down there under those swamps, anyway?   lw

[Ron Scott]

Yes, a peat/muck fire is very stubborn. I've seen and worked a few of them. The Huckleberry Lake Fire on the Sault Ste. Marie Ranger District of the Hiawatha National Forest burned for 2 1/2 years after being flooded over with 4 inches of water by a piped in irrigation system set up from the nearby lake.

We actually flooded the fire area. It continued to burn under 4 inches of water and over the next 2 winters of snow cover before finally being declared "out".

[L. Wakefield]

   Ok, a question on that as I'm picturing it. Was the 'peat' bone dry at the start? Picturing baled peat moss, I know that though it is sposed to hold water, it's actually DanG hard to get it to take up water in the first place.  lw

[Ron Scott]

Yes, extremely dry at the start. The depth of the peat is also a factor as the peat burns deep below the water on top of it, constantly drying itself out and flaming back up.