INDIANTOWN — If ranchers had been permitted three years ago to conduct a controlled burn on lands involved in the fires that began around this rural community Sunday, there might have been less damage for Indianwood residents, a rancher said after the big fire.

But some Indianwood residents opposed the controlled burn. That figured in the decision not to conduct the burn, along with the large amount of trees blown down by the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes.

Terry Wilkes leases land owned by the Post family for his cattle to the east of the golf course community, and normally burned off range and scrub lands every two to three years. The Post family are long-time managers and owners of the Indiantown Company, which provides many municipal type services in the unincorporated area. (more…)

INDIANTOWN — Firefighters already contained a 1 acre flare-up today, even after 4 inches of rain fell overnight.

Officials say years of hurricane debris is keeping a fire near the Booker Park Community, and firefighters are focusing on extinguishing all smoldering vegetation as brush fires burn for a fourth day. Several firebreaks are inaccessible for crews in the Indian Wood Community, causing problems containing the Indian Trail Fire, according to a Division of Forestry release this morning.

As the rain helps, it also brings lightning that can spark new fires.

For firefighters, the “witching hour” comes not at midnight, but at midday, with the threat of dark magic buried deep in the ground.

The temperature rises, the humidity drops and a seemingly subdued fire can burst with surprising strength, sparked from burning muck.

Residents of Indianwood, a mobile home community in Indiantown for ages 55 and up, got a taste of that phenomenon firsthand this week, as embers suddenly blew across a nearly dry canal bed and shot flames up vines and through palmettos. Two houses were lost, another was saved only by a rapid change in wind, and people were injured as they fled the rapidly moving fire.

“People were running for their lives, really,” said Mel Smith, a retired firefighter who has lived in Indianwood for 17 years. “At one time you couldn’t see 10 feet with the smoke and the flames.”

Wildfires burned through nearly 3,000 acres in three days in western Martin County, fire and forestry officials said. Much of the fire was in and around Indiantown, with other blazes in Palm City near the Martin County landfill. By mid-morning Tuesday, there were at least 10 fires, authorities said. (more…)