Florida On Fire: 125 Blazes, ‘Worst Wildfire Season’

TALLAHASSEE, FL — With more than 125 active wildfires burning across Florida, including one that spanned more than 2,200 acres in Pasco County, state officials issued a plea to residents and visitors on Monday, urging caution.

“Florida is in the middle of its worst wildfire season in years – with no end in sight,” Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Adam Putnam said in a May 8 statement. “With such an active wildfire season and much of Florida experiencing significant drought conditions, residents and visitors should take every precaution to help prevent wildfires.”

Get the Patch newsletter and alerts in your inbox.

May is traditionally one of Florida’s driest months, Putnam said, and forecasters anticipate conditions will only get drier and warmer heading into late spring and early summer. Considering the dangers, Gov. Rick Scott issued a wildfire-related state of emergency declaration on April 11. That declaration remains in place. The last time the state had to issue an emergency executive order related to wildfires was June 2011, Putnam said.

According to the Florida Forest Service, there were 125 active wildfires burning across the state on lands under its jurisdiction as of 7:30 a.m. Monday. The fires affected an estimated 31,154 acres. Twenty-seven of those fires, including Pasco’s Anclote Branch blaze, were deemed major, spanning 100 acres or more. State officials also reported there were four fires burning on federal lands in Florida. Those blazes span some 153,746 acres.

As of Monday, 2,000 wildfires had been reported across the Sunshine State since 2017 began. Putnam reported that more than 150,000 acres have burned.

To see the locations of the active wildfires reported by the state as of May 8, check out the graphic below:

With wildfires a concern across much of the state, many counties have issued bans on outdoor burning. Most counties in the Tampa Bay area, in fact, have issued their own emergency declarations related to wildfires. To see which counties are under burn bans, check out the graphic below provided by the Florida Forest Service:

The state also reported much of the Tampa Bay area faced high to extreme wildfire dangers on Monday. The graphic below shows the threats on a county-by-county basis:

For more information on wildfires, county burn bans and fire dangers, visit the state’s website.

Photo courtesy of Pasco County/Graphics courtesy of the Florida Forest Service/Video via the Associated Press