ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Central Florida is under dry and dangerous conditions. Several counties still have burn bans in place as drought conditions continue across the area, and officials say the rain that fell this weekend did little to help.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Volusia, Osceola and several counties remain under burn bans despite recent rainfall
\nFire officials say consistent, substantial rain is needed to ease drought conditions
\nOrange County prohibits outdoor burning year-round
\nOfficials warn Central Florida could see its most active wildfire season since 2017<\/p>\n
Sirens echoed through one Orange County neighborhood as crews responded to a brush fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t scared or anything, just shocked because that sort of thing doesn\u2019t happen in my neighborhood,\u201d said Dame Looby, an Orange County resident.<\/p>\n
When Looby saw smoke rising near her Orange County home last week, she knew it wasn\u2019t routine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were fire trucks that were here, they were already down the hill,\u201d Looby said.<\/p>\n
That fire is one of several that have broken out across Central Florida during these dry conditions.<\/p>\n
In Volusia County, officials announced Saturday afternoon the burn ban remains in place, even after rainfall. Osceola County is also still under a burn ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to need a substantial amount of rainfall on a consistent basis for us to even get out of this drought. If we don\u2019t get out of this drought, we\u2019re looking at the possibility of a very high fire activity,\u201d said Cliff Frazier, Fire Mitigation Specialist.<\/p>\n
In fact, Spectrum News 13’s Weather Experts say in order to effectively combat the drought, the region would have to see 21 inches of rain over the next three months and nearly 38 inches of rain over the next six months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re anticipating this to be a very active wildfire season. We haven\u2019t had one on this scale since 2017,\u201d Frazier said.<\/p>\n
Orange County Fire Rescue says crews have responded to multiple brush fires in recent days and remain prepared for additional calls. The county has an existing ordinance that already prohibits burning year-round.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich essentially means no outside fires, bon fires, yard waste, yard trash,\u201d said Orange County Fire Rescue Assistant Chief\u00a0Antonio Demings.<\/p>\n
Officials say quick response is critical, especially when vegetation is this dry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe provide brush trucks, we have tools on the brush trucks,\u201d Demings said.<\/p>\n
For Looby, she\u2019s keeping an extra eye on her neighborhood and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thank God that none of the houses were damaged in anyway and everyone is safe,\u201d Looby said.<\/p>\n
Officials are urging residents to clear dead debris from around their homes, keep lawns maintained, and call 911 immediately if they see smoke or fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Central Florida is under dry and dangerous conditions. Several counties still have burn bans in place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[767,2967,274,17174,6507,770,2204,115,139,141,140,277,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-174493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-community","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-weather-stories","tag-ashley-engle","tag-community-news","tag-instagram-n13","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-public-safety","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174493","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=174493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}