Fire rises from ashes, closing a stretch of I-75

The Sarasota County blaze began with a lightning strike Sunday and was near extinction when winds fanned the embers and revived the flames.

By ROBIN MITCHELL and AMY WIMMER

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 17, 2000

A southern Sarasota County wildfire turned savage late Tuesday, tearing through 3,000 acres with a wall of flame that crossed and closed a stretch of Interstate 75.

Motorists were being turned back or routed through North Port on U.S. 41 for the 18-mile section of interstate between exits 31 and 34.

Firefighters were pounding on some residents' doors, asking them to get out of harm's way. Some residents climbed to their roofs with hoses to thwart sparks.

"It's so dense with smoke, it's impossible to travel," said Sarasota County fire Chief Brian Gorski.

The fire that state Division of Forestry crews thought they had contained rapidly brewed late in the day, fueled by dry onshore winds and the driest start for a year since 1915.

In the mid-afternoon Tuesday, the state asked for help from the Sarasota County Fire Department, joining a team that already included Florida National Guard helicopters ferrying tons of water to bomb the blaze.

By nightfall, more than 150 firefighters from the state and communities as far off as Venice and Parrish in Manatee County were working to contain the fire. Another 200 firefighters from around the state were expected to arrive today.

"This fire has been kind of challenging in that it's changed directions on us several times," said Gregg Feagans, chief of emergency management for Sarasota County. "If we thought somebody might be threatened, we asked them to get out so there wasn't a panic-type evacuation."

Fire officials were not optimistic it would be under control by morning or that the interstate would be reopened by daylight.

A voluntary evacuation notice was given to residents of Woodland Estates, a rural community of about 20 homes. The flames closed in on the neighborhood in mid-evening. Firefighters knocked on doors of residents most threatened by the blaze and one shelter was opened.

"There were a few people we've told to leave their homes," Feagans said. "But most people are just downwind of the smoke, so they're closing up their houses and boarding up the windows."

A few residents evacuated. But hours later, the fire had retreated from Woodland Estates and was about a mile away.

The fire, which was sparked by lightning in the Carlton Reserve south of Myakka River State Park on Sunday, is the largest that has struck 29 of the state's 67 counties since the weekend. The Sarasota County fire began with a lightning strike, burning about 250 acres on its first day and was close to extinction until winds picked up.

The Carlton Reserve is a county water recharge area that is managed by the state Division of Forestry.

The fire broiled Tuesday, consuming unpopulated acreage north of I-75 as the highway cuts to the east near North Port. As onshore winds swept dry air into the fire, it became a major wildfire during the afternoon.

Behind the counter at a Shell station on U.S. 41, the Tamiami Trail, clerk Jimmy Day was repeating directions again and again and selling Sarasota County maps to travelers diverted off I-75.

"They're all coming this way," he said. "We're getting a lot of heavy traffic."

Day said passers-by were peppering him with questions about the interstate closing.

"They just don't understand what's going on, except that there's a detour," Day said. "Then they look up in the sky, and they see what's going on."

The popular Myakka park, one of Florida's oldest, remained open to campers late Tuesday.

At the North Port Library, also on Tamiami Trail, reference librarian Pat Schubert said the skies around the library were clear, but she could smell the smoke even from inside.

"We're probably, I'd say, about 5 miles away, and you can smell it,' Schubert said. "It's not smoky, but you can definitely smell it in the library."

From her home about 6 miles from the heart of the fire, Joan Cain said she was unconcerned about the fire spreading out of control and reaching her home. "All I see is a lot of smoke, and I hear a lot of helicopters," Cain said.

The state Division of Emergency Management glumly looked forward to more of the same damning weather conditions that caused the wildfire to strengthen.

A high-pressure area over the mid-Atlantic is curbing showers and keeping temperatures in the lower 90s inland and high 80s near the coast. The occasional afternoon thundershower is promised in the central and southern portionsof Florida, but it was just that which brought Sunday's lightning strike. Relative humidities, worried meteorologists working with the forestry crews, might drop below 35 percent in the interior along the Gulf Coast.

Lightning sparked dozens of wildfires across the state, causing 70 of the 119 fires reported Monday, state forest officials said.

"There was a lot of fire activity yesterday," Jim Harrell, wildfire mitigation coordinator for the Florida Division of Forestry, said Tuesday.

Monday's fires burned 4,802 acres, but damaged no structures and caused no injuries, Harrell said.

The passage of a front that triggered the lightning has left drier air moving into the state, pushing drought indexes to dangerous levels.

The driest, most critical areas of the state, Harrell said, are Citrus, Pasco and Pinellas counties, but most of the state also is very dry.

"We have extremely high fire conditions," he said.

So far this year, 2,800 recorded wildfires have burned 81,057 acres statewide.

-- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Information from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and Associated Press was used in this report.

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