Neighbors concerned after Tuesday's controlled burn near Penney Farms gets out of control

As of Wednesday night, there were 10 active wildfires burning in Northeast Florida.

At least four of them were caused by embers blowing in the wind. Those out-of-control fires have neighbors questioning whether prescribed burns should happen right now, especially with homes so close by many of the fires. Betty Marshall-Lopez lives near a controlled fire that got out of control in Clay County near Penney Farms.

“It was so much smoke. It was very scary,” Lopez said.

Lopez said when she saw the smoke and flames Tuesday, her biggest fear was getting her husband out of the house. He lives with Parkinson’s.

“I was really afraid cause it was windy and I didn’t want the wind to, you know, shift it and have it come this way,” Lopez said.

Thankfully, the fire never made it to Lopez’s house and Wednesday, fire crews got the fire 100 percent contained.

Annaleasa Winter with the Florida Forest Service said nearly 200 acres were scorched after a 20-acre prescribed burn grew out of control.

“Ultimately it is their responsibility to have the tools and equipment to keep it in place and to monitor the weather,” Winter said.

Winter told Action News Jax the homeowner will be cited because he lost control of his fire, a blaze that now has his neighbors like Greg Jackson concerned.

"You smell smoke one minute … the next hour it's right here by your home," Jackson said.

"I don't think they should give them permission to burn when it's real dry like it is ... it could cause an extremely large fire and then what are we going to do? Try to run? You know ... where? Where we going to run to?" Lopez said.

Jackson has lived in the area for around 40 years and he thinks it's too dry for anyone to be starting fires.

"It's scary now. It's scary," he said.

Action News Jax asked the Florida Forest Service about that concern.

"These are actually very good burn days that we’re seeing right now and this is the time of year when we burn grasses. The weather factors are really favorable. The drought index is not low … it’s about 100 in our district. The winds have not been that strong,” Winter said.

But Winter tells Action News Jax even though Tuesday’s conditions were ideal to approve the burn, one thing did change as the day went on; the humidity dropped.

Winter said unfortunately that humidity did get very low and fine grasses quickly picked up a spark and took off.

"I just saw this big billows of smoke. You know all back there and fire,” Lopez said.

A scary sight for neighbors, but the Florida Forest Service said despite Tuesday’s blaze, the controlled fires will continue. They need to burn up grasses and fuels for when the wildfire season really starts to heat up.

Cox Media Group