TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Holiday Wildfire Shows Signs of Life

ADVERTISEMENT

By GEOFF FOX | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 20, 2009

HOLIDAY - A wildfire that threatened homes in the Beacon Square community Wednesday gave residents and fire officials another scare this afternoon. Residents noticed more smoke in the woods near the subdivision west of U.S. 19 about 2 p.m. today.

Dave Fogler, an area supervisor with the state Division of Forestry, said firefighters were tackling Friday's "little flare-up" within minutes. Twenty-five families fled the area for several hours when the fire threatened their homes Wednesday.

The rekindled fire "had crossed one of our plowed fire lines," he said.

"If it had gotten over another one, it would have been off to the races. It's low humidity right now. It could have been pretty bad."

William Jones, whose property abuts the smoldering woods, didn't seem concerned about the latest activity this afternoon.

"They're still monitoring everything pretty well," he said of firefighting crews. "It's pretty much directly behind my house."

Fogler said fire officials would likely remain at the location until at least 6 p.m.and would monitor the site every day until there is no more smoke.

That could take another week or so.

"Then we'll have our planes fly over everyday, just to be sure," he said. "I've seen fires come back to life a month later. What happens is it scorches all the pine needles but doesn't necessarily burn them up. Then more needles fall. If they land on a stump that's still burning, you can get a re-burn."

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT