100+ acre brush fire sparked in Baker County; residents who evacuated can return home by 7 p.m., officials say<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe dryness is very big part of what happened here today plus the wind that we had,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cWe had it between an 18 and 20 mph wind when this fire started.\u201d<\/p>\n
The blaze grew to more than 120 acres, prompting mandatory evacuations along Noah Davis and Butcher roads. Residents were allowed to return home by Wednesday evening, with no reports of significant damage to any homes.<\/p>\n
Multiple agencies responded to battle the flames, including:<\/p>\n
\u2022 40-50 firefighters from Baker County Fire Rescue, Macclenny Fire Department and Jacksonville Fire Rescue<\/p>\n
\u2022 13 tractor plows from Suwannee and Jacksonville divisions of the Florida Forest Service<\/p>\n
\u2022 A helicopter carrying 275 gallons of water<\/p>\n
\u2022 Additional aircraft for aerial monitoring<\/p>\n
Twelve-year-old Sawyer Davis watched as smoke threatened his grandfather\u2019s neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust saw this black pillar of smoke spiraling through the sky. I was just like oh my gosh what\u2019s burning and apparently it was the forest,\u201d Davis said. \u201cI said lord please don\u2019t let anyone get hurt with this fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tower of smoke seen from nearby home as 100 acre fire burned in Baker County. (Noreen Fitz)<\/p>\n
Those prayers were answered as crews successfully protected homes and reported no injuries.<\/p>\n
However, Fire Chief Nelson warns the danger isn\u2019t over. Much of northeast Florida faces severe drought conditions, with a rainfall deficit of about 10 inches.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell first we got to pray for rain,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cThat\u2019s the biggest thing we need is going to help. We need that long sustaining rain that will soak in for several days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Florida Highway Patrol said it continues to monitor the area. Drivers are urged to:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Use low beam headlights in smoky conditions<\/p>\n
\u2022 Watch for emergency vehicles and heavy equipment<\/p>\n
\u2022 Be alert for remaining hot spots<\/p>\n
\u2022 Pay attention to smoke warning signs<\/p>\n
At the time crews responded to the Baker County fire, the Florida Forest Service said it was already working about half a dozen other fires in the Jacksonville area.<\/p>\n
Fire officials will continue monitoring the area overnight.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKER COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 A wildfire that threatened homes and forced evacuations in Baker County is now mostly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[177235,4,450,48809,451,3,452,453,6322],"class_list":["post-449754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-baker-county","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-brush-fire","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-wildfire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}