Wild land fire burns more than 6,500 acres in western Broward

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:01]Right now at noon, a brush fire alert in West Broward after a fire breaks out in the Everglades.

[00:00:05]>> burned more than 6,500 acres already.

[00:00:09]Let's go to Local 10's Jackie Pascal who is live in West Broward.

[00:00:12]>> And I know you have the very latest.

[00:00:13]Crews are working really hard to get this thing contained.

[00:00:18]They are. In fact, we just spoke with Florida's Forest Services about their containment efforts. They were kind of coming up with their strategic plan earlier this morning when I checked in with them. So far, they say they've gotten major progress done on the left flank and the head of this fire now 50% contained. And a lot of their efforts are having to come from overhead. In fact, you can see one of the helicopters here. They've been working multiple helicopters though, not just Forest Service, but also the National Guard has a helicopter flying two canals picking up gallons and gallons of water and then dropping it overhead. I want to show you the smoke that's coming behind me and this is the National Guard helicopter also bringing that again water overhead.

[00:00:58]This is the best way they can attack this fire, they said, because it is can be dangerous on the ground for conditions. The focus right now for them is the right flank of this fire, but you can see here it's windy, it's blowing east towards the Miami Canal right now, as I'm told. And you can see all that black smoke pouring off of the Everglades here in West Broward. There's still a lot more work to be done.

[00:01:20]Back to work for Florida's Forest Service battling this massive wildfire along US 27 West Broward.

[00:01:30]Burning thousands of acres. Sky 10 overhead Wednesday showing the latest damage. A thick line of smoke and fire cutting through the Everglades.

[00:01:41]The terrain making it difficult for these crews to contain the blaze. This is the Everglades. Kind of hard to operate in. You have to stay on the levees.

[00:01:49]But uh yeah, we're doing the best we can. So, they fight the flames on the ground and from the air dropping 250 gallons of water at a time. The goal was to keep the fire away from the highway and people and the wind is helping with that, but it's also blowing the flames deeper into the Everglades. We've just had some had quite a bit of rain and we thought we were in a a better place, but uh yeah, this wind picked up really hard.

[00:02:16]A reminder, something as simple as a cigarette butt being tossed out of a window can spark a massive blaze in these conditions. Don't do anything like that. It is so dry. The heavy freeze that we had month or so ago.

[00:02:30]Uh it's I mean, it's it's a recipe for for big fires.

[00:02:36]And the Forest Service so far has not been able to confirm the exact cause of this wildfire, but they did say they believe it originated off of US 27. So, a cigarette butt, good example of what that could have been. Now, as far as the fighting efforts go, we do know that again it started over at US 27, but it spread all the way back here into the deeper part of the Everglades and that's because of this wind, but also the severe drought conditions the worst in about 15 years, according to the Forest Service. And that's why their resources are stretched thin right now. That's why they're bringing in the National Guard like you saw their helicopter up above me and also the Broward Sheriff's Office is assisting today because of again so many fires going on in the northeast part of our state as well. They're also going to bring in more of their all-terrain vehicles with those tracks later on this evening to help with more ground fight. They said the wind should hopefully calm down by tomorrow and they can again get further into this fire and fully contain it. That's latest here in West Broward. Jackie Pascal, Local 10 News.