Wildfires

“The further south you go, the drier it is,” State Forester Rick Dolan said. “Southwest Florida is the driest part of the state, around the Fort Myers area, very dry right now.”

The typical spring wildfire season is in full swing on Southwest Florida, already burning down home in the day fu;;s

Identified as the Raccoon Wildfire, it is estimated to be more than 200 acres in size and burning in a mixture of grass, brush and pine.

The Lee County ordinance bans “outdoor burning ignition sources,” including campfires, bonfires and trash burning. Grills for food and backyard fire rings are not included. Officials ask all county residents to be mindful of dry conditions and to use good judgment to mitigate potential for significant wildfires.

Southwest Florida's wildfire season has begun and this year may be worse than most as NOAA and NWS models predict drought, winds and cold temperatures

Several homes had minor fire damage and a number of vehicles, boats and other property was destroyed or damaged; The ban came after consultation between the Collier County Bureau of Emergency Services, Florida Forest Service, Collier County Fire Chiefs’ Association, Collier County Sheriff’s Office, and the National Weather Service.

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.

Everywhere listeners can hear WGCU Public Media on the radio is within the Southwest Florida region where dry soil and warm temperatures have had wildland firefighters on “high alert” since last week. The Keetch-Byram Drought Index, a measure of the lack of moisture in the soil, has been showing the region increasingly parched during the last two weeks, another harbinger of wildfire. The indicators were right. New wildfires of about 30 acres each, one near Immokalee and the other on the Lee-Hendry county line, were reported early this week, and a seven-acre fire in Highlands County is controlled, as well as a 41-acre blaze in the heavily wooded Rotunda West area of Charlotte County. A wildfire that scorched more than 20,500 acres east of Miami-Dade County over the weekend has been contained.

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.

If you see a huge plume of smoke rising into the sky this time of year in Florida, there is a good chance it’s an under-control wildland burn that has little chance of spreading as opposed to a raging wildfire heading your way. Wildland management agencies take advantage of the early part of the dry season in Florida to purposely burn smaller tracts of land. Called “prescribed burns,” the fires are lit and managed by trained woodland firefighters to help manage the woods as well as avoid larger, out-of-control wildfires later on. Prescribed fires, also called controlled burns, restore overall environmental health to ecosystems that rely on the burn-and-regrow cycle to thrive. Fire managers first have to write out a follow a safety plan, or prescription, for each burn.