It began on April 16, 2007, when a tree toppled onto a power line southwest of Waycross, Georgia. The timing was catastrophic. The April 2007 nor'easter and a strong high-pressure system were driving fierce winds across a landscape already parched by prolonged drought. Humidity was dangerously low. The downed line ignited the Sweat Farm Road fire, which raced through tinder-dry pine forest. By the time it entered the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on April 21, it had been renamed Big Turnaround. By April 30, the fire had consumed 80,000 acres -- roughly 20 percent of it within the refuge -- destroyed 22 homes, and forced the evacuation of over 1,000 people. A firebreak was bulldozed through the pine forest to protect Waycross, but the flames breached the line. The governor declared a disaster in Ware and Brantley counties.

As if the Sweat Farm Road fire were not enough, lightning struck Bugaboo Island deep in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on May 5, igniting a second major blaze. The Bugaboo Fire -- which would not even receive its name for nearly a month -- expanded with terrifying speed. By May 9, the combined fires had consumed over 116,000 acres south of Waycross, east of Fargo, and west of Folkston. Subtropical Storm Andrea approached from the Atlantic, and some hoped it would bring relief. Instead, the storm drove powerful winds into the fire while delivering almost no rain, fanning the flames across the state line into northeast Florida. By May 20, the fires converged to form the Georgia Bay Complex, one of the largest fire events in the American South.

Once the fire crossed into Florida, it became the retronymed "Bugaboo Scrub fire" and combined with blazes already burning in the state. By May 16, the fire complex had grown to 120,000 acres. Six days later, it had consumed 475,000 acres across both states -- the largest fire in the documented history of Georgia and Florida alike. Interstate 75 was closed from the state line, at times as far north as Valdosta, all the way to Interstate 10. Sections of I-10 were shut down for stretches of 40 miles. The detours imposed by the Georgia State Patrol and Florida Highway Patrol doubled the driving distance between Valdosta and Gainesville and tripled the travel time. Hundreds of residents in Columbia County, Florida were evacuated. The Florida Folk Festival, the nation's oldest continuous folk festival, was cancelled for the first time in its history, later rescheduled for November.

The fires' reach extended far beyond the flames themselves. Thick, sooty smoke blanketed Jacksonville and the entire northeast Florida and southeast Georgia corridor for days, at times reducing visibility to under a quarter mile. Health warnings multiplied. On May 22, the smoke pushed north all the way to Atlanta. It drifted south to central Florida, reached Fort Lauderdale, and crossed into southern Alabama and as far west as Meridian, Mississippi. The air quality index in multiple cities registered in the unhealthy range. For weeks, millions of people across the Southeast breathed the Okefenokee burning.

The fires burned through May and into June, defying containment efforts across two states. It took the weather that had been missing all along to finally end the siege. In late June 2007, Tropical Storm Barry swept across the region, dropping heavy, beneficial rain that soaked the scorched landscape. By June 22, the Georgia wildfires were largely contained. The Bugaboo Fire complex left behind a vast scar across the Okefenokee and surrounding lands -- a reminder that even in the waterlogged heart of the largest blackwater swamp in North America, drought and wind can turn a single fallen tree into a conflagration that chokes half a continent.