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Blazes keep
firefighters scrambling in South Florida
By NICOLE
STERGHOS BROCHU
Web-posted:
12:43 a.m. Jan. 13, 2001
Children playing with
matches in southern Broward County. A carelessly tossed
cigarette in Jupiter. Dry brush flaming on a roadside in rural
Miami-Dade County.
It's officially fire season, one of the
driest on record, and arsonists, carelessness and the thaw
from frosty temperatures already are keeping forestry and fire
officials scrambling to contain wildfires across South
Florida.
"The dry conditions we're experiencing
are having a significant impact on our responses," said
Nigel Baker, spokesman for Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.
Since Dec. 1, before water restrictions were
implemented to stave off the effects of the fourth year of
severe drought, Baker's department responded to 144 brush
fires, most of them in Jupiter and Loxahatchee. Two more
erupted Friday in those same areas.
That's an increase from previous years, even
from 1998, a wildfire yardstick, when 500,000 acres burned in
more than 6,000 blazes across Florida.
In Broward and Miami-Dade counties, too,
fire-rescue officials reported fighting an increasing number
of wildfires, especially in their undeveloped western reaches.
Spot brush fires also are erupting across
the state.
Florida Division of Forestry firefighters
have battled 383 wildfires, scorching 11,000 acres of land, in
the first 10 days of January alone, said Paul Palmiotto,
assistant chief of the division's forest protection.
Of those blazes, 69 were intentionally set
by arsonists.
But it doesn't take an act of malice to send
acres of rural land up in flames.
A number of environmental factors -- dry
weather, a rainless forecast, the thaw from cold temperatures
that left brush even more brittle -- have turned area
vegetation into an enormous tinderbox waiting for a spark.
"Now is the time when small human error
could turn into a large-scale fire," said Roman Bas,
spokesman for Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue.
That's what happened Wednesday, for example,
when two boys playing with matches and a flammable furniture
finish started a fire that quickly spread to the size of two
football fields on the Seminole Indian Reservation in Broward
County.
Conditions are so bad, South Florida Water
Management District officials say, that the year could go on
record as the driest since 1938, the most parched year in
state history.
Water managers already this week have
ratcheted up water-use restrictions for Palm Beach, Broward
and Miami-Dade counties in hopes of staving off a water
shortage worsened by plummeting levels at Lake Okeechobee.
Conditions at the lake, the area's
reservoir, are as dry as a drought seen every 75 years, with
the level dipping below 11 feet, 3.7 feet below normal.
The lack of available water in the
730-square-mile lake will make firefighting even more
difficult this year, said Ken Ammon, director of the water
supply division at the South Florida Water Management
District.
Firefighters often tap into canals fed by
the lake to douse area blazes, but within a month, Ammon said,
he expects that source to dry up for those purposes.
Instead, Ammon and others are examining
contingency plans. Those include targeting natural areas that
are particularly susceptible to wildfires and drilling water
wells there.
One area that particularly concerns fire and
forestry officials is the Everglades. Though no immediate
threat is encroaching on this national treasure, officials say
that if a large-scale fire reaches deep into the muck, it can
destroy the limestone bedrock underneath. In such a worse-case
scenario, the vegetation could never grow back.
"Right now, things are OK, but we're
taking a close look at things," said Jim Huffstodt,
spokesman for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation
Commission.
What could change the picture is a series of
heavy rainfalls.
"Obviously, you always pray for
cooperation from Mother Nature in times like these," said
Miami-Dade's Bas.
Still, officials are warning area residents
to be particularly cautious when using campfires, barbecues
and heat-emitting all-terrain vehicles.
And, they say, make sure your home is
protected in advance from the encroachment of wildfires,
especially in the largely rural western areas.
"It's like hurricane season," Palm
Beach County Fire-Rescue's Baker said. "You don't want to
start buying plywood when there are 40 mph winds
outside."
Nicole Sterghos Brochu can be reached at
nbrochu@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6603.
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