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SEBRING, Fla. – Smoke from a South Florida<\/a> wildfire<\/a> that has burned more than 25,000 acres in the Everglades will likely be seen in Highlands County<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n According to Highlands County Emergency Management, shifting winds are expected to push the smoke north into Highlands County mid to late morning.<\/p>\n Why you should care:<\/p>\n Emergency management officials said residents may notice hazy conditions or the smell of smoke throughout the area as smoke from outside the county drifts in.<\/p>\n Highlands County\u2019s drought index is currently between 650 and 700, indicating extremely dry ground conditions that allow fires to spread quickly.<\/p>\n READ: Sarasota officers make daring rescue after running inside burning home<\/a><\/p>\n Highlands County is currently under a burn ban that runs through April 9, 2026.<\/p>\n Emergency management officials do not want people burning yard debris or trash or taking part in other activities that could unintentionally spark a fire.<\/p>\n They added that even a small spark can quickly become a serious wildfire in windy, dry conditions.<\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n A FOX Weather report indicates that on Sunday, two fires were discovered within the Big Cypress National Preserve,<\/a> which is in the Everglades, according to the National Park Service.<\/p>\n Coined “The National Fire,” it was initially spread across 5,000 acres as ground and aviation crews worked to suppress the flames on Sunday.<\/p>\n Satellite footage from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed how the wildfire exploded in severity and spread to 25,000 acres, as it’s even visible from space.<\/p>\n The Source: This article was written with information posted on social media by Highlands County Emergency Management and FOX Weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n Highlands County<\/a>Fire<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article SEBRING, Fla. – Smoke from a South Florida wildfire that has burned more than 25,000 acres in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[855,47,28,30,29,6237,115,628],"class_list":["post-168849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-fire","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-highlands","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}