Smoke Expected in Tallahassee Area

Smoke is in the air.  Most of it is coming from a wildfire, known as the County Line Fire, burning on the Osceola National Forest, northeast of Lake City, FL.  Tomorrow, winds are expected to shift to the east and smoke from this wildfire could reach Tallahassee again.

“Why so much smoke?” you might ask.  First of all, this is a huge wildfire.  The wildfire’s location in a remote swamp has made it particularly difficult to fight using traditional firefighting tactics due to limited access.

Second, this year has been a hard one for getting prescribed fire done due to the ongoing drought.  Since fuels in the area have not burned, the wildfire’s smoke is more intense. 

The U.S. Forest Service, as well as the other land management agencies in the state, traditionally uses prescribed fire to reduce the threat of wildfires.  Those fires also reduce the amount of smoke generated from a big wildfire like the County Line Fire.

You may have noticed a lot of smoke from prescribed fires this spring.  When the conditions were right for fire, many different agencies and private land owners were trying to get prescribed fires accomplished to prepare for the wildfire season. Those windows were small and many prescribed fires were going at one time.

Smoke from prescribed fires can be an annoyance.  However, it is a big investment in avoiding much denser smoke blanketing the area like Jacksonville is experiencing right now.

Florida’s wildfire severity is unusually high for this time of year.  That, again, is a factor of the ongoing drought.  Fire experts predict a long, active wildfire season.

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