POLK COUNTY, Fla. — As Jake Priestman can attest, wildfires spread fast.
“They go really fast,” the 13-year-old said.
Thursday, he and his dad were at their weekend home near River Ranch — a normally tranquil property in rural Central Florida — when a small patch of flames behind their home spread into a roaring, out-of-control brush fire.
Priestman and his dad frantically grabbed a water hose.
“We were hitting it with the water hose. Everything. We tried everything,” the teen recalled. "It was a little flame. Then, it jumped over the road and just sparked everywhere.”
The fire, which blazed through the pine flatwoods behind their home, is part of a much larger brush fire called the River Ranch Fire. The fire is roughly 4,500 acres in size and located in a mostly-forested area east of Frostproof in the rural southeast corner of Polk County.
Luckily, a timely afternoon storm and fast-working firefighters with the Florida Forest Service and Polk County Fire Rescue stopped the flames before they reached Priestman’s home.
According to Priestman and a neighbor whose home was also spared, firefighters used two helicopters, both equipped with buckets, to dump load after load of water — scooped diligently and expertly from a nearby pond — onto the inferno.
“It’s crazy how they saved all this land,” Priestman said. “The Forest Service and Polk County firefighters — without all of them, we’d have lost everything.”
Others were not as lucky.
According to Todd Chlanda, a Wildfire Mitigation Specialist and Public Information Officer with the Florida Forest Service, multiple camps were destroyed by flames.
“Little weekend vacation spots,” he explained. "They’re not permanent residential structures. They’re more for weekend getaways.”
Chlanda did not have an official count of property damage but said one will be compiled once the fire is under control.
The River Ranch Fire is just one state and county firefighters battled in the area Thursday.
Another one threatened the Polk County Sheriff's Office's South County Jail before the fire petered out in a marshy area.
Chlanda said dry weather is to blame for the current elevated fire danger, and the dry weather could continue to contribute to the River Ranch Fire.
“Most likely, we’re going to be here through the weekend,” he guessed.
Right now, Polk County and other nearby counties have burn bans in place, and both Chlanda and Priestman hope people will heed them.
“They can be very careful with any kind of outdoor burning or anything that causes a spark or an arc — welding, grinding, parking in tall grass,” Chlanda said.
“Try not to mess around with matches or flames,” Priestman added.
Firefighters are hopeful for wetter weather, which is forecast for next week.
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
