Friday, April 24, 2009

Smelling Smoke


SW Florida has been under drought conditions for a long time now. We have had several brush fires in the area including on Sanibel. This time of the year is always kind of scary down here. (Sometimes even scarier than Hurricane season!) Right now there is a 3000 acre fire burning down in the Everglades near "Alligator Alley" which is I 75 between Naples and Miami. It was started by a lightning strike on Tuesday. They closed the road down on Wednesday due to the heavy smoke and apparently it is still closed today (Friday). The news last night said that the wind would shift overnight and all of Collier County (south of us) and parts of Lee County (us) would be smelling smoke today. Sure enough, I woke up this morning to the smell of smoke.

Last year there was a huge fire up in the Okefenokee Swamp on the Florida Georgia border. One day the winds were just right and believe it or not that smoke made it all the way down here. (The picture above is from that day.) That fire was over 6 hours driving time away! So I guess it's no wonder that we can smell smoke from the Everglades which is only an hour away.

2 comments:

Little Black Scrap Cat said...

We have had some wicked fire seasons both here and in Montana. Sometimes with smoke in the air for days. Really causes some health concerns. At least here we have our homes closed up due to the heat, so your safer just staying at home.

Unknown said...

And now the Withlacochee Forest has a fire,too.I think it's gonna be a long time til the rains come.And I hope they hurry up!