2 weeks Ago By Abigail Hasebroock
South Florida’s dry and windy conditions again have raised the likelihood of wildfires, as well as the prospect of a smoke smell reaching communities. One of the latest fires is a massive one, burning across an estimated 4,000-acre region in southern Miami-Dade, officials said Wednesday.The region in recent weeks has wrangled with drought conditions, and the National Weather Service earlier this week issued a “red flag warning” to call attention to conditions being ripe for wildfires.
It warned that “with most of South Florida already under drought conditions, this will lead to critical fire weather concerns Thursday afternoon. Any fires that develop could spread rapidly.”Michelle Danielson, a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services forester, said about a fifth of the fire in Miami-Dade, located south of Homestead, has been contained to prevent it from spreading.
Earlier Wednesday, the fire was estimated to be across a 3,600-acre area. That figure was increased to 4,000 acres by Wednesday afternoon.Card Sound Road, the primary roadway from Miami to Key Largo, has been closed since Tuesday, mainly due to smoke covering the roadways, according to the National Weather Service in Miami.
Danielson said officials are uncertain what initially ignited the fire, but the region’s current weather conditions — a combination of the dry weather and high wind gusts — helped it spread.“It’s so dry that the smaller fine grasses will light up really quick,” she said. And as for denser wildlife, such as logs, “it doesn’t take much to light up if there is heat around it to catch fire.
”The wildfire’s smoke is likely to stay in the Miami-Dade area for now, but it may ultimately end up reaching communities farther north. Robert Garcia, a meteorologist for the weather service in Miami, predicts a change in wind direction Thursday, which could push the smoke into Broward and even Palm Beach counties.“We will have to keep an eye on where the smoke goes,” he said.
Smoke from a wildfire fills the sky on Card Sound Road heading to the Florida Keys on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (Monroe County Board of County Commissioners via AP)About two weeks ago, many residents in Broward and Palm Beach counties had questioned why there was a smoke smell, and why a smoky haze had settled over the region. Officials explained it was the smoke coming from a 10-acre wildfire in western Palm Beach County, many miles south of Lake Okeechobee.
Facing challengesThe Miami-Dade fire is burning across “soft terrain,” Danielson said, because even though it appears dry, its proximity to the ocean makes it similar to marshland. That makes it more difficult for crews to fight the fire because equipment is much more likely to sink or get stuck in the swampy area.The direction of the wind also has been changing, which makes it difficult for fire crews to get ahead of the fire, Danielson said.
“We can’t really control the intensity of fires,” she said.Weather aheadUpcoming prospective weather conditions don’t exactly bode well for the possibility of the fire being quenched. Through Thursday night, a “dry frontal passage” will make its way through South Florida, “which will not specifically be inhibiting (the fire) from growing,” Garcia said.
Through the weekend, “a continuation of the dry and mainly sunny streak of weather” is expected.Some moisture is expected to enter the atmosphere on Monday and Tuesday, which could “support the return of scattered showers,” but the chances only hover around 20% to 30%, the weather service said..
