![]() "Don't come to Lake City, not right now," Carpenter said. Weather conditions could cause the thick smoke to quickly return. The interstates were reopened later Saturday to reduce traffic congestion near the road closures, but troopers said drivers were being told to stay away from the area and to use suggested alternative routes. With visibility at almost zero at some points Saturday, Gootee said officers' patrols in the area were at a minimum until conditions improved. "We just encourage people to stay in their houses," said Columbia County Sheriff Bill Gootee. "They're stopping at the wrong places."Įven officers and firefighters were told to stay off roadways when the smoke was at its thickest. "They can't see where they are going," Carpenter said. But even motorists using their headlights and driving at less than 20 mph on roads with 70-mph speed limits didn't have a chance against the curtain of smoke.Īt least seven crashes had occurred on both interstates, four at the I-75 and I-10 interchange, due to the smoke Saturday morning, said FHP spokesman Lt. Saturday, due to the hazardous driving conditions, troopers were forced to close north and southbound I-75 from the Georgia-Florida state line to Lake City and west and eastbound I-10 from Sanderson in Baker County to Live Oak in Suwannee County.īusy with weekend and holiday travelers Saturday, the two sections of closed roadway encompass about 180 miles and are a major crossroad in the state. The weather, however, also caused the dangerous conditions that frustrated motorists.īy 10 a.m. Without the winds pushing the fire across fire lines, that blaze had been estimated as 65 percent contained Saturday, said Megan Crandall with Alachua County Fire Rescue. Weather conditions Friday night, with higher humidity and little wind, however, helped keep the blaze under control.Ĭalm winds also helped firefighters still working hot spots and mopping up after a blaze in Alachua and Bradford counties, estimated at about 15,000 acres. It continues to grow," said Florida Division of Forestry Incident Commander Sonny Greene. A couple of hunting camps in northeastern Columbia County, as well as vehicles parked at the camps, were burned in the blaze earlier in the week. The fire was 10 percent contained with no new reports of damaged structures or injuries. Meantime, more than 400 firefighters continued to battle the blaze, named the Bugaboo fire after the swamp in Georgia where it started, as it loomed northeast of Lake City on Saturday.Īlmost 102,000 acres - about 157 square miles - were actively burning Saturday night in North Florida due to the fire, located north of Interstate 10 and east of U.S. Other motorists, who had been trapped in a line of traffic bloated by drivers trying to avoid the interstates, said they were too infuriated with the conditions to discuss them. "If I'd have known it was like this, I'd have stayed in Fort Lauderdale," Carter said, as he leaned on his truck in front of a gas station on U.S. The normally five-hour trip took seven hours, Carter said, and that was only because he drove his pickup onto the shoulder of I-75 to get off the freeway and onto local roads. Robert Carter, who was traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Suwannee County to work on farmland he owns in Wellborn, was one of those trapped on I-75 when the highway was shut down. FHP began letting traffic through intermittently in the afternoon to reduce congestion as conditions improved.Ĭarpenter warned motorists to take alternate routes, which diverts I-75 traffic west to Madison, then north-south to and from I-75 in Georgia. ![]() Portions of the highways from Lake City up to Georgia, where the fires originated, were shut down after a series of accidents Saturday morning were blamed on low visibility. Click here to watch video Click here to upload your fire photos "We have traffic on the interstate where you can hear the cars. Rick Carpenter, commander of the Florida Highway Patrol Troop headquartered in Lake City. "We're at worst-case scenarios," said Maj. Traffic was snarled on secondary highways, and cars on I-75 and I-10 were brought to a complete standstill, stranding motorists for hours in smoke trapped near the ground by weather conditions. LAKE CITY - Sections of North Central Florida's two interstate highways were shut down on Saturday as a massive wildfire that has burned more than 234,000 acres in two states engulfed Columbia County in a shroud of smoke that in some areas reduced visibility to a few feet.
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