{"id":173967,"date":"2026-03-01T15:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/173967\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T15:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T15:58:08","slug":"illegal-campfire-to-blame-for-cape-coral-brush-fire-firefighters-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/173967\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal campfire to blame for Cape Coral brush fire, firefighters say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firefighters continue to monitor a site after an illegal campfire burned 36 acres and sent smoke across Cape Coral on Saturday, Feb. 28.<\/p>\n

According to a social media post by Cape Coral Fire Department, they and the Florida Forestry Service had it 95% contained by late Saturday and monitored it throughout the night.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A brush fire along Del Prado near Kismet on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, was determined to be 36 acres in size and was 95% contained by the end of the day, Cape Coral Fire Department reported. They determined the cause was an illegal campfire.<\/p>\n

The fire had grown to about 14 acres about 1 p.m. Saturday when smoke created visibility problems and officials shut down Del Parado Boulevard near Kismet Parkway and Andalusia Boulevard.<\/p>\n

They reopened the road hours later with a warning to drive carefully.<\/p>\n

Sunday morning, firefighters were to continue with brush trucks to contain the area and combat hot spots.<\/p>\n

Investigators determined an illegal campfire started the blaze.<\/p>\n

No fires under Lee County burn ban<\/p>\n

Cape Coral, and all of Lee County, are under a burn ban.<\/a> Cape Coral says no to fireworks, bonfires and ATVs racing over grass as the New Year begins with the\u00a0city in a severe drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The entirety of Lee County is affected by drought, with 2025 among the 7 driest in 131 years, drought.gov states.<\/p>\n

No open flames are permitted to prevent fires like Saturday’s, the department said, saying it had the potential to threaten homes and businesses,<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0U.S. Drought Monitor map,<\/a>\u00a0Cape Coral remains in an severe drought.<\/p>\n

The According to The Weather Channel, Cape Coral has a 17% chance of rain on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Stacey Henson is the breaking news and visuals editor for the Naples Daily News and Fort Myers News-Press. You may reach her at shenson@gannett.com<\/p>\n

Please support Southwest Florida community journalism and stay informed about Southwest Florida news by subscribing to\u00a0The News-Press<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Naples Daily News<\/a>; download the free\u00a0News-Press<\/a>\u00a0or Naples Daily News app, and sign up for daily briefing email newsletter, food & dining and growth & development newsletters\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Cape Coral firefighters determine illegal campfire burned 36 acres<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Firefighters continue to monitor a site after an illegal campfire burned 36 acres and sent smoke across Cape…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,82542],"class_list":["post-173967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida-forestry-service"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173967","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=173967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}