ST. CLOUD, Fla. — Florida Forest Reserves is still battling a wildfire near Lizzie Lake Preserve in Osceola County.
They say it’s about 80% contained.
According to officials, the fire has consumed 575 acres.
Billy Green was home cutting the grass when he started seeing smoke.
“I never seen anything like this,” he said. “All I could see was a line of white smoke. Then I seen black smoke on top. It kept moving from east to west.”
Mike Facente, the district director of Florida Forest Services, informed Eyewitness News that “lightning strikes started it.”
Crews contained the fire by creating a burn line to prevent it from spreading to nearby homes, like Green’s home.
“They took away all the vegetation with the dozers. The dozers took the soil down to natural dirt,” he said. “Naturally, fire can’t burn in sand.”
Facente said this year has been a busy year for wildfires. Since the start of the year, they’ve worked more than 1,400 fires across the state.
“We’ve been a drought the last couple of years, but not extreme drought. It hasn’t been dry like this since 2011, 2012.”
Several counties have issued burn bans. Florida Forest Reserve is helping with those bans.
“We haven’t been letting anybody,’ he said. “We’ve been running four to six fires a day.”
Green has lived in the area for 35 years. Friday’s fire was the worst one he’s seen that close to his house, he said.
He thanked Facente and the other crews for working through the night to keep the fire from spreading and destroying homes.
“They did a great job,” he said.
Facente anticipates rain on Saturday and Sunday to assist in extinguishing the fire.
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