ATLANTA — Wildfires burning in the Appalachian Mountains are funneling smoke into metro Atlanta.
At different parts of the day, you could see a slight haze from the smoke above the Atlanta skyline. Many of the people Channel 2’s Ashley Swann spoke with had no idea it was coming from the wildfires so far away.
"There's a real, peculiar, smoky smell. But you don't see smoke or fire or anything, so it's kind of strange," Cobb County resident Gina Cook told Swann.
Some assumed fire had to be nearby. Others knew immediately what was behind it.
The Georgia Department of Forestry confirms the smoke is not the result of new wildfires.
[READ: Breezy Wednesday ahead of cold front later this week]
Severe Weather Team 2 meteorologist Brad Nitz shared with Swann a high resolution satellite image of the flames burning Tuesday in north Georgia into Tennessee and how a weather shift brought the smoke to the metro.
“Yesterday, and through the early part of this week, that smoke was being blown away. But a cold front came through, winds have turned around to the northwest now, so the smoke is blowing down into and across metro Atlanta and the rest of north Georgia,” Nitz told Swann.
“Makes it a little more scary when you think it can do that," Cook said.
Wind and dry weather conditions have contributed to both the spread of the fires and the smoke they caused.
Like many, Cook said she hopes relief will come soon.
"We need rain,” Cook said.
Cox Media Group
