A half-dozen separate wildfires that started Sunday have scorched hundreds of acres in Augusta County. Investigators are working to discover the cause while firefighters battle rugged terrain to get the blazes fully contained.
Dozens of fire crews have mobilized to battle the blazes in the rough terrain of the George Washington National Forest. About 50 firefighters are in the forest but there's no estimate of when they'll get the fires fully contained.
The good news is that much of the flames are trapped between two roads, which should keep them from threatening homes in the nearby town of Sherando. Bulldozers carve out some fire lines, others come from chain saws and leaf blowers.
Kathy Hall of the United States Forest Service said, "There are some steep hillsides and that's always a challenge for us as far as footing. There's a lot of snags, dead stuff, that's going to start falling on us. So we're constantly having to look up and look down, keep an eye on all of it."
Investigators have a close eye on several areas where they believe the fires started.
Rodger Moyers of the Virginia Department of Forestry stated, "We can tell the burn patterns and we can go back and find the origin of the fire where it started. We'll also take samples at the origin to see if there were any accelerants used."
The points of origin are along Howardsville Turnpike and an intersecting logging road but those two gravel drives have also helped contain the flames.
Hall said, "They do provide us a nice barrier or buffer with which to use to control the fire if we need to. And they're helpful, so we try to take advantage of all those opportunities when they're there for us."
Flames have generally stayed low to the ground where there's plenty of fuel like autumn leaves and fallen branches.
Late Monday afternoon the U.S. Forest Service estimated the scorched acreage at 300 to 350.
Smoke from the Sherando fire is easily visible from the Blue Ridge Parkway but is not expected to threaten it. At its closest point the fire is roughly a half-mile from the parkway, and nearly as far from the closest homes.
