Florida Panhandle Weekend Wildfires Fueled by Hurricane Michael’s 2018 Devastation

According to the Florida Forest Service (FFS), in 2018 Hurricane Michael roared on shore in Florida’s Panhandle, leaving behind approximately $25 billion in damage in the U.S. and destroying nearly 72 million tons of trees across nearly three million acres of timberland. Those destroyed trees are currently the fuel source for two massive wildfires that FFS and emergency crews have been battling in Florida’s panhandle this past weekend.

In commenting on the wildfires, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried said, “As we’ve been saying for three years, [after] over three years with Hurricane Michael debris on the ground, unfortunately, something like this was expected.”

“It’s a lot of timber,” Fried added. “It’s $1.3 billion worth of timber that’s on the ground that takes time. And so, for one we’ve been really able to create a lot of the fire lines across residential property, create buffers which have really been very helpful.” Fried said they are looking for more funding at the state and federal level to clean up debris from Hurricane Michael more quickly.

Representative Neal Dunn (R), whose district is being impacted by the wildfires, said that FEMA grants for fire management have already been approved. “We gotta address all these trees that fell over in Hurricane Michael. And there are three million acres of trees on the ground. We’re cleaning them up, but nobody’s ever seen that much fuel on the ground before,” Dunn said.

Dunn said that the Panhandle has more timber on the ground than anywhere else in the country. “Literally nobody’s ever seen this much wood on the ground in the history of the country. And it’s unburned, this didn’t burn down it fell down,” he said. “So, it became firewood and of course, it’s dried out over the course of three years.”