In 2024, in which nearly every category of weather that can occur in Florida set a record, one didn’t: drought.
Dry conditions this year have stoked wildfires to the north, south, and east of Southwest Florida as drought took hold in the region’s forests. Deep in the Everglades, and within inland parks and nature preserves, wildfire fuel is thick after Hurricanes Ian, Helene, and Milton.
There have been multiple Red Flag Warning days in the state and outdoor burning of any type is banned in Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry, and Highlands counties.
Local firefighting agencies and the tractor-mounted wildland fire specialists at the Florida Forest Service are standing by as the sense is that hot and fast-moving blazes are overdue.
The amount of wildfire fuel left by the hurricanes is staggering. Some forests are now loaded with nearly 100 tons of felled trees and dead underbrush per acre. If cut into firewood that would make enough to stack several dump trucks' worth into the perimeter the size of a football field.
When a wildfire has that much kindling it burns hotter, spreads faster, and is harder to control. These are the blazes that can destroy homes in minutes and ruin lives even faster.
That type of threat has captured the attention of national wildfire officials, who have been warning South Floridians to prepare for a challenging spring.
“The Florida Peninsula is influenced by persistent drought and available fuels from previous weather events and the ongoing effects of a long-term precipitation deficit across South Florida that has left many areas in a vulnerable state from east to west,” said Rebecca Patterson, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. The center has forecast a heady wildfire season for the lower half of Florida, sparking up soon and happening often.
“The most likely outcome is a spring fire season with above-normal fire activity,” she said. “And an early onset of the most active part of the fire season.”
Wildfire weather forecasters issued new long-term guidance on Thursday that reigned in earlier forecasts of drought lasting until the fall in South Florida.
Despite temperatures predicted to be slightly above average and rainfall somewhat below normal, the new forecast calls for the drought to ease as early as next month - or as long from now as the middle of summer.
How "early" the "early onset" of peak wildfire activity ends up being is crucial.
Sooner than later leaves a lot of time for a small blaze to blow up into a catastrophic wildfire while drought is still gripping the region. The forest fires all around are still buring or only recently put out.
But if the drought has broken by the time wildfires start popping up in the region, whether from lightning strikes or something nefarious, few in Southwest Florida will even know wildfire season just passed by once again.
A big concern
The origins of today’s wildfire threat include Hurricane Ian’s rip through the region in 2022. The Category Four cyclone left in the woods an enormous, wet mess of downed trees, broken branches, and shredded vegetation. All of that has since dried out many times over. The hurricanes that followed literally piled on.
The state forest service has been burning sections of wilderness to clear out wildfire fuel, but there is only so much it can do with the massive amount of tinder built up throughout the Everglades and the woods in Southwest Florida.
The Keetch-Byram Drought Index measures the dryness of the soil, ranging from 0 (saturated) to 800 (desert-dry). It’s a top tool used by firefighters to gauge the risk of wildfires and by weather forecasters to help determine when to issue a Red Flag Warning, which signals that critical fire weather conditions are developing.
Forecasters at the National Weather Service issued a warning on Wednesday for Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, and Manatee, which are among the 12-county region in peninsular Florida yet to see a wildfire outbreak this spring.
Another such warning was issued Thursday for Glades, Hendry and several counties along the state's east coast.
The KBDI in the Everglades topped 700. Southeast Florida’s drought index was in the 690s. Inland portions of Southwest Florida’s counties, such as Collier and Hendry, reached the 630s, and Lee County surpassed 600.
“That's a big concern, especially out in this area,” said Katie Heck, a spokeswoman for the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District. “We have the kind of wildland-urban interface with the homes intermixed in these large areas of vacant lots.”
Heck said Lehigh Acres is among the rural lands packed with tons of dead and dried-out trees and branches.
“The biggest thing is just making sure that people understand that we are in a higher state of danger right now for these fires,” she said. “Both to start and then also to spread — faster than people would expect.”
‘Florida’s firestorm’
Every spring is wildfire season in Florida.
Many years the dry season passes with little note because there are no big wildfires to make the evening news, or blazes are numerous but spread out. January to June passes by with little more than the scent of woodsy smoke outside for a day or two.
Then there are other years.
In 1998, nearly 500,000 acres were blackened and hundreds of structures, including homes and businesses, were leveled in what became known as Florida’s Firestorm.
From April to July, wildfires caused more than $600 million in damage.
Much of the destruction that year occurred along the east coast where, for a time, Flagler County’s 130,000 residents were evacuated. Wildfire smoke reached downtown Orlando some 50 miles away.
Three people died indirectly from the blazes.
To be clear, no wildfire agency is forecasting that this wildfire season will approach the devastation wrought nearly 30 years ago.
But there are similarities.
In 1998, and again this spring, high-pressure systems have settled over Florida following a cold snap. Extreme weather, followed by high winds, left a lot of dead vegetation dried out in the woods. Then, drought.
This week, 11.3 million Florida residents live in areas affected by drought, according to the federal Drought Monitor, an area that has increased by 13.2% since last week. Everyone living in Lee, Collier, DeSoto, Hendry, and Sarasota counties is in an area with abnormally dry weather.
In Hardee County, 99% of the residents live in an area classified as unusually dry. In Glades County, 90% of the area is experiencing drought. In Highlands County, it’s 51 percent.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was forecasting drought to persist in South Florida until October until earlier this week when the agency said there is a greater chance the overly dry conditions will fade in the coming months.
Either way it will take the early arrival of consistent summer showers, which are not forecast, or another hurricane or two, which nobody wants, to quench the drought that’s parching forests — and the trees and shrubs inside woodsy enclaves of homes east of Interstate 75 — in the short term.
Heck, from Lehigh Acres fire control, said that makes this a good time for everyone to be aware of their surroundings.
“If you see smoke and fire, call 911 immediately,” she said. “Don't wait or assume that someone else has called for you.”
Environmental reporting for WGCU is funded in part by VoLo Foundation, a non-profit with a mission to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health.
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