Florida Forest Service

A tractor plow crew from the Florida Forestry Service Caloosahatchee Office drive toward a 40-acre wildfire off Green Meadow Road in eastern Lee County Friday afternoon.

Weather

Mop-up efforts underway on wildfire off Green Meadow Road

WGCU Staff

The smell of smoke was noticed miles away on the FGCU campus Friday afternoon.

Heavy rains in mid-April have soaked the soil in Southwest Florida enough to lessen the wildfire threat in Southwest Florida's woods previously dried out by several months of drought conditions

Environment

Heavy rains appear to have quenched strong, fledgling wildfire season in region

Tom Bayles

Some of the parched woods that were ready to burn in Southwest Florida last month did that,. Other tinder-dry woody underbrush was soaked by rains in mid-April.

Southwest Florida counties that last month were colored red, signifying a major risk for wildfires, are now showed in a low-risk blue color after rains in excess of three inches in several counties in the region

Wildfire threat waning as May showers portend summer rainy season

Tom Bayles

The Florida Forest Service lowered the risk of wildfires in the region mid-May as the Sunshine State moves into its typical summer rainy season.

The Keetch-Byram Drought Index measures the lack of moisture in the soil, which can be an indicator of looming wildfires. The Florida Forest Service's April 1, 2022, map shows South Florida is parched

Forestry managers concerned about heightened threat of wildfires in South Florida

Tom Bayles

As often happens when the Florida’s short winter turns to spring, wildfire finds fuel first among the woods in the Panhandle. A flicker in March grew to a blaze that scorched more than 30,000 acres in three counties amid the dead trees and dried vegetation left in the wake of Category 5 Hurricane Michael in 2018. In what is today’s Interstate 10’s east-west corridor, millions of pines have been planted during the last century by St. Joe Company, a lumber producer-turned-land developer, and Michael’s top winds of 155 miles per hours felled and splintered an untold number of trees. In the three years since, Florida’s heat turned timber into tinder. And then as in many years past, the threat of wildfire moves to South Florida. Today, every place where listeners can hear WGCU FM is within a region where wildfires are not just a concern but a significant possibility, according to the Keetch-Byram Drought Index, which is a measure of the lack of moisture in the soil.

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Government & Politics

Group Signs Off On New Babcock Ranch Preserve Management Plan

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Environment

Busy Fire Season Predicted for Southwest Florida

John Davis

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