Florida Wildfire, Drought Conditions

Early sunday while doing my daily browsing of the Florida radars, I noticed a fire smoke plume on the radar, and actually it shows up very well on the Miami, Tampa and Melbourne radar sites. The fire was located on the southwest side of Lake Okeechobee, just south and east of the small town of Lakeport, Florida. The low and mid-level westerly winds, helped to carry the smoke plume all the way to the Florida east coast. Smoke and ashes we being encountered in the city of Okeechobee, where white flakes fell like snow. So I opted to chase down the fire for some footage and to kill some late Sunday afternoon hours. Plus, there was not going to be any storm chasing today, as instability was nil for storms.

Once I arrived at the fire, the first thing I noticed was I was not going to be able to get close. The fire was beyond the Lake Okeechobee dyke system and in a area that is normally a marsh land, with water and swamp. The Florida drought conditions has the lake level several feet below normal, so the fire was burning in a dried out marshy location. The fire line looked to be about 2 miles long, and slowly burning eastward towards the lake. I setup and starting shooting video of palm trees and bushes going up in flames from a distance. The fire was not overly dramatic, but was impressive enough to film and watch. The fire at the time was of no threat to homes or people from what I could see, and only burning in marsh land.

February through April each year, is Florida’s wild fire season. This time of year is towards the end or the dry season, and its very dry over Florida. All it takes is a lightning strike and bam, you have a large fire. I’m sure the will be many more wild fires to come this spring in Florida, so if your living here, or just visiting, please be careful not to start a fire..