State's role in I-4 pileup questioned

A drop in humidity caused a controlled burn near I-4 to turn into a wildfire. Interstate 4 reopens:Traffic resumes Thursday night; fog may halt it again.

By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published January 11, 2008

Florida Highway Patrol and Department of Transportation workers investigate the accident, which was re-created at the Fantasy of Flight attraction.
	[Ken Helle | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT Related links View photos, share yours State's role in I-4 pileup questioned FHP officials say agency responded properly Loss devastates newlywed's family Heroic deputy stays out of the spotlight [Daniel Wallace | Times] Florida Department of Transportation workers remove barriers on eastbound Interstate 4 on Thursday evening, opening the highway for the first time since a 70-car pileup Wednesday morning.

A sudden and dramatic drop in humidity turned a controlled burn into the smoky wildfire that preceded Wednesday's deadly chaos on Interstate 4 in Polk County.

Now a team of state investigators is trying to determine how much responsibility the state itself bears for the 70-vehicle pileup that killed four people and injured 38 more.

A five-person investigative team from the state Department of Agriculture is taking a careful look at every factor that could have been involved, but avoiding any rush to a conclusion, said law enforcement division deputy chief Lou Leinhauser.

"It's such a highly charged atmosphere," he said. "Everybody wants scalps."

But if it turns out the state is at fault, he said, the department "will not sit on it. If there are any warts on it, it'll be out there."

A spokesman for the agency that started the controlled burn, the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said the agency's employees are horrified that their actions may be blamed.

"For any of us to think we had a hand in this is just unthinkable," said Gary Morse of the wildlife commission's Lakeland office. "We're sure an investigation will show we did everything according to Hoyle."

However, in the aftermath of the crash, critics are questioning why state officials would start a fire near a major highway while the state is caught in a lengthy drought.

"These burn permits are way out of control," said Eddie Roberts, a retired firefighter from New York now living in Auburndale, the town nearest the crash. "They have no business allowing a permit under those conditions."

Actually, Morse said, when wildlife commission employees started the burn in the Hilochee Wildlife Management Area near I-4 Tuesday morning, conditions were considered ideal for keeping the fire contained to a 10-acre parcel.

The controlled burn was actually designed to prevent wildfires - not turn into one.

* * *

The same area in Hilochee burned during the wildfires that swept the state seven years ago, Morse said. The fire then left lots of stumps and dead trees behind.

Then in 2004 Hurricane Charley knocked many of those trees down. Those fallen timbers make ideal fuel for a wildfire, Morse said, so the Hilochee staff has been setting controlled burns in small areas to clear away that fuel before it caught fire from lightning or another cause.

In October they burned 30 acres north of I-4, and in November they burned 50 acres on the north side of the highway, Morse said. In December they burned 148 acres on the south side of the road. In each case, the controlled burn went off without any problems.

Tuesday's controlled burn was expected to be similarly uneventful. Steve Burger of the commission staff had filled out the required paperwork for a burn permit from the state Division of Forestry in November and held it in his desk until the conditions seemed right, Morse said. This time he planned to burn 50 acres north of the highway, in 10-acre segments.

A weather forecast from the forestry staff showed that the humidity would not drop below 60 percent all day, a crucial factor in determining whether to proceed with a burn. If humidity dropped to 30 percent or below, the Division of Forestry would have denied the permit.

A form that Burger filled out to document the controlled burn showed that the humidity measured 63 percent at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, so he and a crew of five other employees started the burn at 10:15 a.m. They expected to be finished by noon.

"They do a lot of prescribed burning, and they do a good job at it," said Department of Agriculture spokesman Terry McElroy. "But something apparently went awry."

To the crew's dismay, within an hour after they started the fire, the humidity abruptly dropped to 30 percent, Morse said. That wasn't part of the forecast, he said.

"Sometimes Mother Nature throws you a curve," he said.

* * *

Mike Cantin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin, said that kind of sudden change can easily occur in Florida when a high pressure system forms a dome high above the state.

Before sunup, the high pressure system - which has very low humidity - sits at 6,000 to 8,000 feet up, while down near the ground the humidity remains very high, he said. Then as the sun rises and warms up the ground, the two layers quickly mix or even flip, putting the drier air closer to the ground.

"It can happen abruptly," Cantin said.

When the humidity dropped, the drier air quickly sparked the fire to spread beyond the ability of the six-person crew who had set it, Morse said. By 11:15 a.m. the wildlife commission employees had called in the Division of Forestry to help battle the blaze, but it quickly spread to 400 acres.

When they were unable to contain the wildfire by 5 p.m., the firefighters notified the state Department of Transportation and the Florida Highway Patrol that the smoke might drift across I-4. DOT employees put out flasher-topped orange warning signs that said, "Fog Smoke."

Morse said the smoke was blowing away from the highway the next morning, and a Highway Patrol spokesman told an Orlando television station that troopers driving on the highway did not see any smoke before the crash. Instead they blamed an early-morning fog.

However, meteorologist Tom Dougherty of the National Weather Service said the smoke caused the fog to thicken to the point that drivers could not see the cars in front of them.

"Apparently the trigger mechanism behind it was the smoke from the burns they had near the roadway," he said, explaining that particles in the smoke gave water vapor in the fog something to cling to, making it thicker.

In the aftermath of Wednesday's crash, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd compared the fog bank to "a wall." Once drivers hit it, they couldn't see and began slamming into each other. Beginning about 5 a.m., there were 10 separate crashes on that one stretch of highway.

Leinhauser said his investigative team will interview meteorologists as well as witnesses and the people involved in the controlled burn. It's possible no one could have prevented the tragedy, he said.

"This could be one of those god-awful perfect storm things," he said.

Meanwhile the Agriculture Department's Division of Forestry is conducting its own review of the permitting for the controlled burn, he said. Forestry spokeswoman Anne Malatesta said that because of the drought, which has lasted for two years, the division may now stop issuing burn permits.

The Forestry Division, which manages state forests across Florida, had already stopped doing any controlled burns for now, she said.

"We don't want to start this kind of a fire, a muck fire in the winter that we have to fight until the rainy season comes and puts it out," she said.

Times staff writers Abbie VanSickle, Catherine Shoichet and Nicole Hutcheson and researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

I-4 detour options

Authorities reopened Interstate 4 on Thursday night. However, fog could force it to close again. Check www.tampabay.com to see if I-4 is open in Polk County. If not, here are some alternate routes:

- State Road 60 goes through Bartow before connecting with U.S. 27, a north-south road that hooks up to I-4 on the other side of its closed section.

- U.S. 92, which connects to U.S. 17-92, will likely be jammed.

- State Road 50, farther to the north, runs between Brooksville and Orlando and can be reached via Interstate 75.

[Last modified January 11, 2008, 01:23:25]