2007 Florida Fires, may trump 1998

[Justin E. Reed]

I have arrived back in Jacksonville from Orlando. I am sitting at work right now, and lookin SW, about 40 miles away, is an extremely weird looking orange glow, thats the fire by Camp Blanding. Currently, large fires are active in Flagler, Seminole, Alachua, Lee, Clay, and Bradford Counties. The Bradford and Clay fires started today around 2 at 50 acres, now at 1100, it is 4,000 acres due to the 2 merging, this could be our monster fire. I passed close to the Seminole County fire on I-4, it's just north of Sanford, and moving towards the city to the SE. Smoke is highly likely to envelope Orlando, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Melbourne/Titusville, Gainesville, and much of SE Georgia. The SE GA fire is now at 100,000 acres and growing. This coastal Nor'easter is blsting winds up to 40mph in JAX Metro and 30mph further inland. This situation is getting way out of hand. A new fire has exploded on the west end of Panama City Beach in Bay County, and is threatening many homes and businesses and one church. Also, a large fire is heading towards hundreds of homes in Walton County just south of Freeport, near Black Creek. I will keep you all posted on this escalating situation. It is currently on track to be equal, and possibly becoming worse than 1998.

 

[Justin E. Reed]

The state of Florida is now under a State of Emergency, due to over 300 fires burning. A fire in GA has moved into Baker County, forcing the whole town of Taylor to be evacuated. The Clay/Bradford County fire has mushroomed to 16,000 acres and is moving into Alachua County, home to Univ. of Florida and Gainesville. The Seminole County fire is under control, at least in the sense homes are not threatened at this time. Duval County EMS is currently in Code 3, which a high state of readiness. Ocala and Gainesville are currently totally covered in smoke, as low as 1 mile of visibility. Fires are currently still raging in Panama City Beach, damaging 3 homes and crossing U.S. 98/Back Beach Road, a four lane highway. In Walton County, 200 homes are threatened by the Black Creek fire. In Sarasota County, near the city of Sarasota crossed I-75 and forced it to be closed.

 

[Justin E. Reed]

The fires are getting much much worse. The biggest fire in Florida has tripled in size in 2 days. It is in Columbia County, near Lake City and is preparing to cross I-10 and move into Lake City. It started last weekend in the Okefenokee Swamp, crossed into Florida in Baker County, bypassing Taylor, and now moving to a much larger city. Tampa for much of the day had visibility below 2 miles and has gotten better, but will get worse tonight with the wind shift. The winds have backed off, after gusting to 40 yesterday. A very good chance of rain for this weekend, which many businesses have posted " Pray for Rain" on their marquis'. If you get a chance to see a visible shot of the Gulf of mExico, the eastern 1/3 is swamped with smoke, pretty incredible. Will yall please pray for rain for us here in Florida, we can't take any much more drought.

 

[Jay Reid]

Justin,

Today, I drove through Alachua and Columbia counties during my trek from Daytona to SW Georgia. Visibility was down to 1/2 mile this p.m. (4-5pm) in northern Alachua and southern Columbia counties. Mostly 3/4 - 1 1/2 mile vis in area. Totally clear north of I-10.

Called a friend to see what the sat image was showing....1km res showing what we expected.

The Bugaboo fire (GA/FL line) was 88,000 acres in GA and 45,000 acres in Baker Co. FL. That's since May 5th!!!!!! The Ware-Charlton GA fire is 110,000 acres and slowly growing.

 

[Justin E. Reed]

Interstate 75 is closed from the GA line to south of Lake City. Interstate 10 is closed from Sanderson to Live Oak. This has created an incredible traffic nightmare, reports of traffic backed up from 20-30 miles in southern Georgia. This is incredible, traffice counts in JAX are way way up on I-95.

 

[B Ozanne]

Aside from homes burning, am I the only one that thinks forest fires are actually good?

The fires in Florida seem to just clear the understory of dead debris. I'm sure there is some crowning but most of the flames seem to be low. Nothing like the western fire storms. After a few weeks of rain the burn areas will be lush and green again.

 

[Justin E. Reed]

New wildfire on the northside of Jacksonville, near Jacksonville Int'l Airport. This has shut down the last interstate to get out of Florida, I-95. So if your trying to get out of Florida via interstate, your S.O.L. right now.

 

[B Ozanne]

New wildfire on the northside of Jacksonville, near Jacksonville Int'l Airport. This has shut down the last interstate to get out of Florida, I-95. So if your trying to get out of Florida via interstate, your S.O.L. right now.

The traffic has to be killer down there right now. Aren't they expecting rain over the next few days?

 

[Justin E. Reed]

LOL theres plenty of thunderstorms around, just not around Duval County. I like active weather, I'm so sick of sun and stuff, gimmie a hefty thunderstorm,.

 

[B Ozanne]

NJ Wildfires

Yesterday afternoon an F-16 started a wildfire in the pine barrens of New Jersey. As of this morning it has grown to over 15,000 acres. Pre-frontal winds should create some dangerous fire conditions by later this morning.

 

[mrobinett]

Yesterday afternoon an F-16 started a wildfire in the pine barrens of New Jersey. As of this morning it has grown to over 15,000 acres. Pre-frontal winds should create some dangerous fire conditions by later this morning.

I didnt catch the cause of that one, was it a crash or weapon release or what..?
Mike

 

[B Ozanne]

I didnt catch the cause of that one, was it a crash or weapon release or what..?
Mike

Its not official, but even the military has high confidence that a flare ignited the fire. They were practicing bombing runs with flare releases in the area and a fire just happened to break out around the same time.

Unlike Vieques, this is probably the last straw for NJ target ranges. Several years ago a fighter dropped a bomb on a school. Nobody was in the school and the bomb was either a dud or fake, but that's not really the point. Now they most likely started this large wildfire that has burned several homes.

After last night's rains I'm pretty sure the fire is under control now. Crews are probably just mopping up today.

 

[Justin E. Reed]

It appaears rain from earlier this week helped the fire fight out very well. Our base had 1.09 inches of rain, KJAX .39. Much of the heaviest precip fell in a corridor from Orange Parkin N. Clay County to the Oceanway area of N. JAX near the airport. The storm that dropped much of it cause much damage at Rowan CT and Lem Turner RD, just south of JIA. Winds estimated at 90mph ripped the roof off a MIDAS, blew out the Walgreen's sign, snapped steel light poles, uprooted large trees, peeled awnings and carports off, and other business signs were ripped right out of the ground, concrete base included. The Bugaboo Firre is 80% contained and all evacuations in Columbia Co., where Lake City is, have been lifted. We needed the rain, but geez, its not summer downburst season yet. Florida is ready for what we call Sea Breeze Thunderstorm Season. It is a safe estimate that 95% of the seabreeze storms occur between the people's summer, Memorial Day thru Labor Day. Lets hope this season is very active, because it was short and abnormally late last summer, for an example of that, Lake Okeechobee water levels.