Wildfire season amps up during the spring and early summer.
Southwest Florida's landscape is starting to dry out right at the time of year when wildfires are becoming more prominent and dangerous.
Spring is typically the driest time of year, the period when days are not only hotter but are also longer.
Windy conditions are also prominent this time of year, which help dry out the landscape and make it fertile for wildfires.
"We've seen a few brush fires, nothing very large," said Melinda Avni, spokeswoman for the Florida Forestry Service's Caloosahatchee station. "We've been able to put them down very quickly. But we are seeing some very dry conditions."
Fire is a necessary but dangerous part of the Florida's ecology.
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Plants, trees, grass and animals have adapted to long-burning fires over the course of thousands of years, since the historic Everglades emerged from the oceans.
"Just about every ecosystem in the state of Florida has learned to work with fire," Avni said. "It's way of resetting the nutrient load that's carried in the vegetation above ground."
What causes wildfires?
Higher, drier ground burns more easily and often. Open prairies and pine flatwoods burn more often than do sloughs and swamps, which may only see fire once every century.
"This time of year we're not going to see much rain," Avni said. "It's when we see the human-caused accidents — when a campfire isn't fully out or a car is parked in a field. A fire can start just from the heat from the vehicle."
Avni said the cause of fires will switch in the next two months, from humans to weather-driven events.
"We want to see rain before lightning," she said. "If we've had a slightly wet winter, we have a little bit of wiggle room, but we haven't really had those steady gentle rains that show up every couple of weeks."
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The peak of wildfire season starts next month and ends in June, when lands become saturated and difficult to burn.
But parts of Southwest Florida are already showing potential.
"For Lee County, we just got into the danger zone (Thursday)," Avni said.
The danger zone is part of a fire danger index the forestry service uses to evaluate current wildfire conditions.
Lee and Charlotte counties measured high on that scale Friday, with Collier coming in a moderate risk and Manatee at a low risk.
What's next for Southwest Florida?
The National Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is calling for above-average temperatures between now and June and and equal chance of below- or above-average rainfall.
For the short-term, Southwest Florida will see highs in the upper 80s and possibly record temperatures.
"With that warmer air and increasing humidity through the weekend, you're going to feel the dew points going up and it will be a little sticky," said John McMichael, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "We will get some cooler and drier air after the high pressure builds in behind the front Thursday. But this weekend could be record high temperatures, especially away from the coast."
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McMichael said winds are typical at this time of year, but that they tend to stay around 10 to 15 miles per hour.
Typical highs for Southwest Florida for this time of year are around 82 degrees, with a nighttime low of about 60 degrees, McMichael said.
"It's kind of normal to see this going on," he said. "We have a large ridge of high pressure that will sit over us until the mid-week, and then there will be a cold front late Thursday and into Friday. But from now through Wednesday the daytime highs will be mid to upper 80s and generally lows in the 60s."
Connect with this reporter: @ChadEugene on Twitter.
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The Link LonkMarch 27, 2021 at 03:07AM
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Wildfire season on the horizon as landscape continues to dry during hot, windy spring - News-Press
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