Two massive wildfires broke out in the Florida Panhandle over the weekend in an area recovering from a Category 5 hurricane three years ago.
Firefighters and emergency workers are struggling to maintain the blaze. The 8,000-acre (about 3,237 hectares) Bertha Swamp Road fire and the 1,400-acre (567-hectare) Adkins Avenue fire threatened homes and forced the evacuation of residents of at least 750 homes in Bay County, Florida, over the weekend.
The Adkins Avenue fire destroyed two structures and damaged another 12 homes late Friday. The local emergency official said no homes were damaged, and there were no injuries on Saturday, the second day of battling the Adkins Avenue fire.
“No homes damaged. No injuries to residents or responders. Big win for Bay County!” Bay County emergency officials tweeted early Sunday.
Local authorities said they did not know when residents would return to their homes. “It is NOT safe to return home at this time. Please be patient as first responders battle these dangerous fires,” Bay County officials posted online.
The county opened a shelter at the Bay County Fairgrounds for displaced residents. “We understand and recognize that everyone is anxious to go back home and that it has been a huge inconvenience,” said Valerie Sale, a Bay County spokeswoman.
The Florida Panhandle fire has been burning in Bay County since Friday, forcing the evacuation of at least 600 homes; it was 35 percent contained Sunday morning.
The much-larger Bertha Swamp Fire started in neighboring Gulf County on Friday but spread to Bay and Calhoun counties on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of another 150 homes. It was ten percent contained as of Sunday morning.
Fire officials said Florida Forest Service helicopters had dropped more than 103,000 gallons (about 468,000 liters) of water on the Adkins Avenue fire since Friday, and 25 bulldozers had been deployed to plow fire lines.
“Unfortunately, what we have going on today is almost a carbon copy of yesterday’s weather,” Joe Zwierzchowski, a spokesman for the Florida Forest Service, said Sunday morning. “We are looking at high, sustained winds of 10 to 15 (16 to 24 kilometers) miles per hour, gusting up to 20 to 25 miles (32 to 40 kilometers) per hour. So that’s going to make it a very dynamic situation.”
Hurricane Michael in 2018 was directly responsible for 16 deaths and about US$25 billion in damage, and it left behind 72 million tons of destroyed trees that have provided fuel for the Bay County wildfires, according to the Florida Forest Service. Currently, nearly 150 wildfires are burning more than 12,100 acres (about 4,900 hectares) throughout Florida.
