SAVANNAH, Ga. — Officials battling two large wildfires that have destroyed dozens of homes in southern Georgia warned Tuesday that firefighters are bracing for a prolonged battle even after weekend rains gave a big boost to containment efforts.

“A little bit of rain is going to help us, but it’s not going to get us out of this situation,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told a news conference after touring the fire areas Tuesday. “We’re going to be in this for a while.”

A fire that has burned roughly 35 square miles (90 square kilometers) and destroyed more than 80 homes in rural Brantley County was 32% contained, the command team overseeing the fire response said Tuesday. That’s up from just 6% containment reported Monday.

Rains on Sunday slowed the fire enough to give crews an opening to widen containment lines along the perimeter and to snuff out some smoldering pockets, said Johnny Sabo, director of the Georgia Forestry Commission.

“As that number increases, our confidence at holding it in that footprint increases,” Sabo told reporters. He added: “We have a long way to go. I just want to stress that.”

A larger wildfire in sparsely populated Clinch and Echols counties has charred more than 50 square miles (130 square kilometers) at the Georgia-Florida line. Sabo said crews have held that fire to roughly the same footprint for four days. It was considered 23% contained Tuesday.

One home and several dozen sheds and other smaller structures were destroyed, said Don Thomas, a Georgia Forestry Commission spokesperson.

An unusually large number of wildfires are burning this spring across the Southeast. Scientists say the threat of fire has been amplified by a combination of extreme drought, gusty winds, climate change and dead trees and other vegetation.

No fire injuries or deaths have been reported in Georgia. A volunteer firefighter in Nassau County, Florida, died last week after suffering an unspecified medical emergency while suppressing a brush fire.

Progress made against the Brantley County blaze prompted local officials to lift evacuation orders Monday for roughly 1,500 people who had fled their homes. About 2,500 remained displaced, said Susan Heisey, a spokesperson for the fire command team.

Local officials have warned people returning home to be prepared to evacuate again if necessary.

Both Georgia fires ignited as the state’s worst drought in two decades has rendered vast pine forests and swampy lowlands tinder dry and highly combustible.

Investigators concluded the Brantley County fire began April 20 when a foil balloon touched a power line, creating an electrical arc that set the ground ablaze. The fire in Clinch and Echols counties started April 18 by a falling spark as a man was welding a gate, according to state officials.

Forecasts showed a high chance of more rain over the fires this weekend. There’s also a possibility of thunderstorms, which can produce lightning that causes new fires.

Officials haven’t said how long the Georgia fires might burn, only that it will take significant rainfall to extinguish them.

Sabo noted that a vast fire sparked by lightning in the nearby Okefenokee Swamp in 2011 burned for just shy of a year.

ATLANTA – The Georgia Department of Revenue will begin issuing tax rebate payments in early May to residents across the state.

Millions of dollars headed to Georgia taxpayers

What we know:

The state is distributing $1.2 billion in cash from a $14 billion surplus. According to the Georgia Department of Revenue, single filers will receive $250, while heads of households will get $375. Married couples filing jointly are set to receive $500. Governor Brian Kemp signed off on these rebates in March, marking the fourth year the state has returned cash to the people.

To be eligible for the money, you must have paid taxes during the qualifying years. Most people should see the funds arrive as early as May 1. The money will be delivered the same way you received your tax refund, which for most Georgians is through a check in the mail or a direct deposit.

What we don’t know:

While the state says payments begin in early May, the specific date an individual taxpayer can expect to see their funds in their bank account or mailbox is not yet clear.

Expert advice on using your rebate

What they’re saying:

Professor Usha Rackliffe of Emory University’s Goizuetta Business School says taxpayers should use the money mindfully. “This is not life-changing money,” Rackliffe said. “But it’s still amazing. You have to treat it like found money.” She suggests splitting the cash into two “buckets”: one to pay your future self by handling high-interest debt or investing, and another to pay your current self by doing something fun, like going to dinner or the movies.

Tracking your rebate status

What you can do:

If you want to track your payment, you can check the status of your cash on the state’s website.

Every April since 1922, the whole town of Thomasville turns out for the Rose Show and Festival, with flower floats rolling past the 1858 courthouse, classic cars lining the square, and local chefs sneaking rose petals into cupcakes and cocktails. On the second Saturday of every month, the arts center throws its doors open for free. The 345-year-old Big Oak in Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park has a gazebo beneath it where people gather to sit, talk, and take each other’s picture (the camera mounted on a phone pole across the street will email it to you for free). Thomasville makes a strong case as the friendliest little town in Georgia, and the case rests on how much of life here happens together.

Downtown Thomasville

Downtown Thomasville turns on the Thomas County Historic Courthouse, an 1858 Greek Revival building that anchors the central square. The courthouse plays its biggest role each April during the Rose Show and Festival, a two-day community gathering that sets the social calendar for the year. The festival’s signature events run on volunteers and neighbors recognizing each other across booths: rose displays from local growers, three additional flower shows, live music, and an artisan market where most of the vendors come from a few counties over.

The Orchids on Parade kicks the weekend off with floats from schools, clubs, churches, and small businesses. The Show and Shine Car and Truck Show fills the square with more than 100 vehicles, most of them shown by their owners, who stand around answering questions all afternoon.

The festival pulls in restaurants and shops the same way. Because roughly 90% of the roses grown locally are edible, businesses around the square work them into the menu for the weekend. Liam’s Restaurant Lounge and Cheese Shoppe, a New American spot with European leanings, mixes a Rose City Cocktail with rose water and vodka. Sweet CaCao Chocolates, which uses local ingredients across its seasonal lineup, layers vanilla cupcakes with rose petal icing and turns out vanilla-rose macarons. None of this is mandated by the festival board. It just happens, the way most things happen here, because everyone is in on it.

Historic Landmarks That Bring People Together

The Big Oak does most of the work for itself. Standing at the corner of Crawford and East Monroe Streets, the southern live oak (registered with the Live Oak Society in 1936 as the 49th member) reaches 68 feet tall, has a trunk circumference of 26.5 feet, and a limb span of more than 165 feet. It dates to around 1680, which makes it older than the town. The tree sits in Elizabeth Ireland Poe Park with a Victorian gazebo beneath it, and most days you’ll find people sitting on the bench, taking pictures, or watching strangers take pictures. A camera mounted on a telephone pole across the street will email a snapshot to anyone who calls the posted number, and that small detail is part of why people end up chatting with whoever’s there.

The Jack Hadley Black History Museum holds 4,669 artifacts of African American history, with exhibits running from slavery and the Buffalo Soldiers through Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The museum runs guided tours and educational programming designed to bring small groups through together. Scavenger hunts pull families and visitors into the same conversation, and the docents lean into that, because the museum’s whole approach is built on people processing history out loud rather than reading panels in silence.

The Thomasville History Center, founded in 1952, is one of the oldest historical societies in the state. Its main building is the historic 1923 Flowers-Roberts House, with eight buildings spread across 3.3 acres. Tours and educational programs run six days a week, all of them free, which makes the center one of the easier places in town to walk in alone and walk out having met someone.

Thomasville’s Arts Scene

The Thomasville Center for the Arts opens its galleries free of charge year-round. The work on display rotates through local, regional, and state artists across multiple media, and the center programs around community engagement deliberately. Free 2nd Saturday is the most visible piece: every second Saturday of the month, the doors open with themed activities, art stations, and hands-on crafts that draw families, retirees, and first-time visitors into the same room. There is no admission charge and no expectation that you stay for any particular length of time, which is part of why it works.

The center’s annual Due South benefit concert, held each April at the Ritz Amphitheater downtown, has run since 2012 and brings performing, visual, and culinary arts together for one evening. The Thomasville Antique Show, which celebrated its 37th year in 2026, draws exhibitors from across the country to show antiques, fine art, and contemporary design alongside design lectures and hands-on workshops.

Friendliness in Thomasville is the kind of thing the town has built infrastructure around. The Rose Show pulls in restaurants, schools, clubs, and chefs in a structure where everyone has a part. The arts center keeps the doors open without charging at the threshold. The Big Oak gives strangers a reason to stand still in the same spot for a few minutes. Each of these is a small mechanism, but stack them together and a town that knows how to talk to itself is what comes out the other side. That is the version of Georgia that Thomasville is actually selling.