Wildfires in Florida (Summer) update #1

The wildfires in Florida have also been in the news recently, I want to spend a little time on these fires. Of course, the fires in the southwest in AZ and NM, including the Wallow Fire continue to burn (up to at least 500,00 acres), check out Wildfire Today where Bill Gabbert continues to do a great job writing about those fires (among other things).

As you can see from the map that I have posted (from the Florida Division of Forestry, as of June 17, 2011 there were 443 active wildfires. Of these 56 wildfires are over 100 acres. You may go here to download the latest active wildfire map from the FL Div of Forestry. An interactive mapping program with many layers, including but not limited to fires currently burning in FL may be here.

The Florida Div of Forestry also posts a State Wildfire Update with information on significant wildfires The latest update is dated June 17 at 8 AM, I have pulled out some information on larger significant fires from the latest update below:

Impassable Bay Fire (Baker County) at 7,818 acres and 15% containment,
Santa Fe 11 Fire (Bradford County) 6,500 acres at 60% containment,
Bad Land Fire (Levy County) 3,175 acres at 80% containment,
Maytown Road Fire (Volusia County) 1,230 acres at 50% containment,
Espanola Fire (Flagler County) 5,047 acres at 40% containment,
Big Cypress Oil Pad Fire Complex (Collier County) 9,530 acres at 0% containment,
Trail 3 Fire (Palm Beach County) 6,528 acres at 90% containment.

Those of you wanting more information might want to check out he main webpage for the FL Division of Forestry here. I should say that they have a link for daily (wildfire) reports which I am unable to access, perhaps because it requires Microsoft IE v6, which I don't have.

Inciweb has information on a few wildfires currently burning in FL, all seem to be in the Big Cypress National Preserve. I found this information here on June 18. Note that the information on this page may well have changed when you access the page as active fire information on InciWeb is updated frequently.

I'll be checking out FL media outlets for news on these fires over the next day or so and will report back here in a couple of days with an update on the wildfires in FL.

Update: June 18, 2011 at 1:46 PM
Almost forgot, the Southern Area Coordination Center issues a morning report, the latest report may be found here. Significant fires in the southern region are summarized, along with crew assignments, weather, etc.