LAKE CITY, Fla. – Authorities briefly reopened two highways crossing north Florida into Georgia on Sunday before dense wildfire smoke forced them to again halt traffic, while hundreds of Florida residents waited to return to their threatened homes.
Officials said Sunday that the wildfire that had raced through the Okefenokee Swamp in southeast Georgia and into Florida had charred more than 233,700 acres -about 365 square miles – since it was started by lightning a week ago.
Authorities reopened 90 miles of two highways for a couple of hours Sunday morning after wind helped push the heavy smoke away from the highways. But they were later forced to close nearly all those stretches.
About 570 residents were not being allowed to return to 150 homes evacuated between Interstate 10 and the Florida-Georgia state line.
Firefighters working Saturday and through the night to control the blaze got help from previous prescribed burns near Lake City, Florida officials said.
“The fire burned into an area of the Osceola National Forest that had done a prescribed burn in the winter, so there was less fuel to burn,” said C.J. Norvell, part of a joint federal-state forestry management team.
The fire started May 5 in the middle of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. It took just six days to grow larger than another wildfire that has burned nearly 121,000 acres of Georgia forest and swampland over more than three weeks. The smaller fire was started by a tree falling on a power line.
The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Georgia’s Steven C. Foster State Park inside it remained closed.
The smoky skies over South Florida have disoriented birds, causing many to fly into buildings, wildlife experts said. More than 100 warblers and other small birds found injured on the ground have been brought to the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station in Miami to recover, said Wendy Fox, the agency’s executive director.
“The smoke’s not good for anybody, but obviously, it’s throwing something off for them,” Fox said.
Elsewhere, a blaze feeding on drought-stricken forest in northern Minnesota was only 15 percent contained as of Sunday. The fire had closed about half of the 57-mile-long Gunflint Trail, a key route from Grand Marais into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness that is dotted with resorts and lake homes.
Flames jumped a defense line designed to keep it away from 20 or so homes on Loon Lake on Sunday, and helicopters dumped water on the flames to contain it.
Officials said Sunday the fire had destroyed 133 buildings, including 61 residences.
Off the coast of Southern California, continued cool weather Sunday helped firefighters on Santa Catalina Island maintain control of a blaze that had threatened the resort community of Avalon.
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