Just after a sea breeze helped firefighters stop a blaze threatening neighborhoods, the wind shifted again late Tuesday, prompting authorities to order residents to evacuate their homes once again.
Early in the afternoon, officials had issued a mandatory evacuation affecting 2,000 homes. Several hours later, they were telling people they could go home as long as they stayed alert.
Then, after dusk, the wind shifted again, pushing flames toward about 200 homes in a subdivision inland from Cape Canaveral. Deputies and firefighters knocked on doors, ordering residents to leave as the wildfire blew toward the area.
“We’ve just had a breakout,” said Lt. Paul Stepina of Brevard County Fire Rescue. “It’s fast-moving, with heavy fuel.”
This fire, like others burning in spots throughout Florida, has proven unpredictable.
Firefighters had contained the wildfire west of the small towns of Scottsmoor and Mims. But as the blaze pushed toward the homes in Brevard County, officials issues their first mandatory evacuation order since fires began burning across Florida on Memorial Day.
Firefighters in Brevard kept any homes from burning, but officials warned residents to keep a close watch on the fire, which has charred about 10,000 acres so far.
A shelter was opened at nearby Mims Elementary School, but only six people had showed up Tuesday afternoon.
One of them, Megan McDonald, said she packed pictures, mementos and a CD collection, but left behind clothes.
“Tons of clothes, nothing that I couldn’t replace,” she said.
To the north, in southern Volusia County, officials were urging residents to stay away from about 300 homes in three areas threatened by fires, but not ordering them to do so.
Fire crews continued battling blazes near Lake Harney, where a 200-home subdivision about 35 miles south of Daytona Beach was threatened.
More than 1,500 fires since Memorial Day have burned 79 homes and almost 247,000 acres–mostly forest, palmetto scrub and swamp land–from one tip of Florida to the other.
Early Tuesday, as bulldozers roared to cut a firebreak, Athea Presley watched from her Brevard County backyard nearby.
“Thank goodness I just did my wash this morning,” she said. “We’ve been dealing with this for a week now.”
Presley said she felt safe then because so many firefighters were surrounding her house over the weekend.
But that changed when Brevard Sheriff’s Cpl. Jim Kellison pulled into her driveway a few minutes later and said, “We need to get you packed up and out of here.” Tears sprang to her eyes, but she headed for her trailer, saying she had to get her dogs first.
“All locked up? Got your keys?” Kellison asked.
She gave a tearful nod and left. Clouds of dirt rose from the road as residents sped off, all beneath the clatter of helicopters fighting the inferno.
“I got my dog, my medicine, my cigarettes and my scooter. That’s all I’ll be needing,” said Jim Ramsey, 82, who lives in a hunting camp.
Ron Weiss of the state Division of Forestry stood beneath the utility lines gathering information from spotter planes and deploying ground crews. “First, we send in the helicopters to wet it down, then the bulldozers work the fire line, then we send in the brush trucks,” Weiss said.
