By
The Associated Press
POLK CITY, Fla. - A central Florida wildfire had grown to 11,000 acres yesterday after closing part of a key east-west highway and forcing the evacuation of dozens of homes.
The blaze was only 20 percent contained, authorities said.
There was no immediate indication when authorities would reopen a 10-mile section of heavily traveled Interstate 4, which connects Tampa, Orlando and Daytona Beach.
The wind-driven fire in Polk County had charred 11,000 acres by early yesterday.
No injuries were reported, and no houses were damaged. About 30 homes were evacuated in a sparsely populated area near Polk City.
"Because of the swampy area, this fire isn't going to subside for a long while," Gov. Jeb Bush said Monday as ash from the fire swirled around him. "It's got anywhere from 4 to 10 feet of fuel to burn before it reaches the dirt."
"People need to know that most of these fires are man-made, either by arson or human error," Bush said. "I-4 is closed, which has created an incredible hardship for many people, and we've got hundreds of firefighters out there all because of human error."
Some residents returned to their homes Sunday afternoon after being told to leave Saturday night. Others ignored the evacuation orders, choosing to run sprinklers on top of their homes and in their yards.
The Detroit Tigers, who hold their spring baseball training in Lakeland, had to use alternate routes to get to their practice facility from Haines City hotels.
The Polk County Correctional Institute took 120 inmates with respiratory problems to neighboring jails, authorities said.
A federal fire suppression grant was approved for the state, said Joe Myers, Florida's emergency management director.
The grant would recover 70 percent of the costs of fighting the fire in Polk County once local and state fire teams reach $1.5 million in costs, Myers said.
A total of 1,230 fires have blackened 83,150 acres from the beginning of the fire season Jan. 1 through Saturday, according to the division of forestry.
Fire officials say the drought and recent freezes mean conditions for fires are worse than in 1998, when blazes burned 500,000 acres across the state.
