Unseasonably warm weather and low rainfall have dried out much of Florida, fueling several wildfires and leaving forestry officials worried about the prospect for more.
The forecast calls for rain this week but only intermittent showers, not the summertime downpours that forecasters say are weeks away.
"We've had two months essentially with nearly no rain across the state," said Deborah Hanley, meteorologist for the Florida Division of Forestry. "Things are very dry."
Firefighters spent Wednesday battling several fast-growing blazes from the Jacksonville area to the Everglades. Hundreds of families were evacuated, and the Alligator Alley portion of Interstate 75 was closed for several hours because of smoke.
Forecasters say several areas around the state likely will get some rain later this week, but not enough to douse the threat of fires.
"It's just going to be hit or miss," said John McMichael, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. "Not every location will get it."
The Tampa Bay area could use some rain. It had below average rainfall in May and higher temperatures than usual. For example, Tampa International Airport, which averages 2.85 inches of rain in May, received only 1.44 last month.
Some areas north of the bay got a brief respite from the heat Wednesday. In Citrus County, thunderstorms brought much-needed rain. But the storms also brought high winds that downed power lines and uprooted trees, and lightning that caused numerous brush fires, a constant concern when thunderstorms strike dry areas.
The Forestry Division identifies potential wildfire trouble spots by using a drought index that measures the amount of water in the ground. The scale ranges from zero to 800, with zero being flood-like and 800 being desert-like.
Every local county has readings in the 500s or 600s - in the danger zone. Pinellas is 547; Hillsborough, 586; Pasco, 620; Hernando, 628; and Citrus, 669.
The Tampa Bay area is not the driest part of the state. Alachua and Gilchrist counties in northern Florida are the worst, with measurements in the 700s.
One of the Wednesday wildfires was on the Alachua-Bradford county line.
It grew from about 3,000 acres Wednesday morning to about 5,000 acres in the afternoon and forced the evacuation of hundreds of families in a rural area south of the state prison complex near Starke.
All of those evacuees were returning to their homes late Wednesday.
As a precaution, the Bradford County Emergency Management Center evacuated people from areas south and east of the blaze, much of which is burning in inaccessible areas of the Santa Fe swamp.
"The rain has helped, (but) it didn't take care of the fire," said Nelson Green, director of the Bradford County Department of Emergency Services. "It's going to be smoky here for days."
No injuries have been reported and no homes or structures have been damaged.
In another North Florida blaze, more than 100 firefighters in the remote John Bethea State Forest, north of Baxter near the Georgia border, gained ground on a blaze covering nearly 3,000 acres.
In South Florida, the Alligator Alley portion of Interstate 75 reopened three hours after smoke from an Everglades brush fire reduced visibility to zero.
Blazes continued to burn in the region, and troopers were monitoring the area, said Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Roger Reyes.
"We need some rain," said Hanley, the forest service meteorologist.
- Staff writers Saundra Amrhein and Suzannah Gonzales contributed to this report, which included information from the Associated Press.
