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DOVER, Fla. – Florida<\/a> is a proverbial tinderbox heading into peak wildfire<\/a> season.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson and Florida Forest Service leadership held a press conference giving an update on wildfire conditions in Florida.<\/p>\n By the numbers:<\/p>\n Officials said that so far this year, there have been more than 1,500 wildfires throughout the state, including the Hernando Beach fire that burned approximately 150 acres last month<\/a> and forced evacuations, as well as one that is currently burning about 2,500 acres on the Florida-Georgia border.<\/p>\n FFS noted that there are also two fires currently burning in Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n So far there haven\u2019t been any reported fatalities from the fires.<\/p>\n Why are wildfires burning in Florida? <\/p>\n According to Simpson, Florida is ripe for wildfires, not only because of the drought, but also due to the freezes earlier this year.<\/p>\n “Anytime you combine drought with the freeze that we had, certainly killed most vegetation that we had in the state,”: Simpson explained. “It does make it worse, potentially a lot worse, when there is a drought. If we had normal rainfall this year. Certainly, that would have abated some of the problems with the freeze, but when you have that vegetation, it\u2019s very easy to burn and dry.”<\/p>\n How to prevent wildfires <\/p>\n What you can do:<\/p>\n During the press conference, Simpson stressed the importance of saying something if you see something because arson is a big cause of fires.<\/p>\n “Another big factor is the fire in the backyard,” Simpson stated. “Burning brush fires, having a barbecue, not putting those fires all the way out is leading to major fires all over the state.”<\/p>\n Simpson encouraged everyone who owns a home or business to have a defensible space around it.<\/p>\n “Defensible meaning clean the roofs off, clean the gutters out, make sure you\u2019ve got brush and debris pulled back away from your homes and businesses. That way if a fire does break out in your area, you\u2019ll have something we can defend.”<\/p>\n Simpson also said not to throw cigarettes on the ground.<\/p>\n “These fires with the winds and the drought that we\u2019ve had and freezes are a perfect recipe for a major system,” the agriculture commissioner shared.<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n To prevent fires from getting out of hand, the Florida Forestry Service has lit prescribed fires. Simpson said there are between two and two and a half million acres of prescribed burns in the state each year.<\/p>\n “We do that to eliminate the fuel in our forest systems and to restore those forests,” Simpson explained. “So, prescribed fire at two-and-a-half million acres. The entire country does about 10 million acres. We\u2019re about 25% of all the prescribed fires.”<\/p>\n He added that the state invested in a drone program about three years ago.<\/p>\n “They help not only monitor those fires but also help put those fires out and help start fires on the prescribed burns,” he stated.<\/p>\n Simpson went on to say that the state also bought nearly 100 bulldozers and brought the helicopter fleet up to ten to fight fires.<\/p>\n He warned that he expects things to get worse before they get better.<\/p>\n When is peak wildfire season in Florida?\u00a0 <\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n April through June is peak fire season in Florida.<\/p>\n The rain on Tuesday is beneficial but is just a short reprieve.<\/p>\n Simpson said between 12\u201320 inches of rain across Florida is needed to take the state out of the drought conditions.<\/p>\n The Source: This article was written with information from a press conference on Tuesday with Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson and Florida Forest Service leadership. \u00a0<\/p>\n Hillsborough County<\/a>Fire<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOVER, Fla. – Florida is a proverbial tinderbox heading into peak wildfire season. On Tuesday, Florida Commissioner of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[855,47,28,30,29,629,115,628],"class_list":["post-222218","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-hillsborough","tag-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222218","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=222218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/vlcsnap-2026-04-07-12h28m41s858.jpg\")
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