Ongoing Wildfires Leaving Thick Smoke Over Some Of South’s Biggest Cities

Wildfires near the Georgia-North Carolina line are spewing smoke so thick that residents are being urged to wear special masks if they must do outdoor activities. The fires — many of them suspected arsons — have prompted evacuations in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee in recent days. The largest of dozens of ongoing wildfires in the South has now burned 13,300 acres, more than a third of the vast Cohutta Wilderness area, in the north Georgia mountains just south of the Tennessee line. Fire managers said the blaze, believed to have ignited from a lightning strike in mid-October, was only 20 percent contained.