Three wildfires burned tens of thousands of acres in and around Everglades National Park before officials lifted emergency closures, part of a punishing fire season across Florida and the nation.
Everglades National Park reopened the Shark Valley District at 1 p.m. on Aug. 24 after lightning-sparked blazes forced closures earlier in the week. The largest of the three fires, dubbed the Chipmunk Fire, had burned roughly 17,000 acres by Monday and was only 60 percent contained, USA Today reported.
Two smaller fires, the Vulture Fire at 347 acres and the Movie Dome Fire at 6,207 acres, were both fully contained by Monday. Combined, the three fires charred more than 23,500 acres of one of the country's most ecologically sensitive landscapes.
The Chipmunk Fire was first reported on Aug. 21, roughly two miles southwest of Shark Valley. A day later, the Vulture Fire broke out east of the Shark Valley Tram Road. The National Park Service confirmed both were caused by lightning.
The cause of the Movie Dome Fire has not been disclosed, and park officials have not said when it started.
Everglades National Park posted updates on Instagram and Facebook throughout the closures. The park urged visitors to check its alerts and conditions page for the latest information before planning trips into the area.
The Everglades blazes fit a broader pattern. More than 2,800 wildfires have ignited across Florida since January, burning over 200,000 acres statewide, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Nationally, the numbers are staggering. The National Interagency Fire Center reports that 50,784 fires have burned more than 7.8 million acres since the start of the year. The agency's predictive outlook flagged South Florida for "above" normal significant wildland fire potential in August, a forecast the Everglades fires bore out in dramatic fashion.
Shark Valley may be open again, but the threat is not over. The Chipmunk Fire remains active at 60 percent containment, a figure that may already be outdated, since park officials tied it to Monday's count. Whether containment has improved since then is unclear.
No injuries, fatalities, or structural damage have been reported in connection with any of the three fires. The park service has not disclosed how many firefighters were deployed or which agencies responded, though a Facebook post from the park referenced U.S. Wildland Fire personnel on scene.
When tens of thousands of acres burn in a national park and the federal fire outlook already warned it was coming, the question isn't whether the system worked, it's whether anyone upstream acted on the forecast before the lightning struck.
