Washington, DC spent decades telling land managers to extinguish every fire immediately.
Now 100,000 acres are burning across Florida – and peak season hasn't started.
And a former EPA official just called it what it is.
1,700 Fires Before Lightning Season Even Begins
The Florida Forest Service has recorded 1,797 wildfires burning more than 103,000 acres since January 1.
That's more than half of what the state typically sees in an entire year – and it happened before summer lightning arrived.
State Forester Rick Dolan was direct at a Tuesday press conference.
"The peak fire season is not here yet."
"We have not received lightning so far. And when that comes, and it's coming, we're going to be as busy as we probably have been in decades."
https://twitter.com/WiltonSimpson/status/2046709386513363341?s=20
His timeline: eight to ten more weeks of this, with no rain forecast through June and drier-than-normal conditions locked in through summer.
18 Months of Drought Nobody Wanted to Talk About
Florida has been in drought for 18 months.
By mid-February, 99% of the state was in drought – with 85% classified as severe or worse.
By late March, over 70% had crossed into extreme drought.
Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson called it the worst wildfire season in maybe 30 or 40 years.
St. Petersburg logged just 7.7 inches of rain since September – half the normal amount.
The sawgrass that normally holds moisture turned into tinder.
Jacksonville declared conditions "as dangerous as they get" and issued a total burn ban.
42 counties have enacted burn bans statewide.
Evacuation orders have forced families from homes across Clay, Putnam, Baker, and Nassau counties.
A 4,100-acre fire is burning near the Clay-Putnam County line.
A 2,500-acre blaze is active in northwest Baker County.
The Newman Drive Fire near Naples burned 1,733 acres and forced evacuations along Interstate 75.
https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/2019908701587443788?s=20
Chief Financial Officer and State Fire Marshal Blaise Ingoglia issued a statewide warning Thursday: clear debris from your roof, trim vegetation around your home, and don't throw a cigarette out your car window.
The state has pre-positioned firefighting equipment in Tallahassee, Lake City, Jacksonville, and Cross City in Dixie County.
Aircraft and bulldozers are already cutting fire breaks.
This is not a North Florida problem.
This is the entire state.
The Federal Philosophy That Built This Fire Season
Florida's forests are burning partly because Washington spent decades operating under one foundational principle: extinguish every wildfire, as fast as possible, wherever it starts.
Josh Cook served as a regional administrator for the EPA under Trump and has spent decades on forestry and land management policy.
His verdict: "A lot of this is a man-made disaster."
The philosophy sounds reasonable until you understand how Florida ecosystems actually work.
Pine flatwoods, scrub, sawgrass prairie – these landscapes evolved with fire.
They're supposed to burn every three to seven years in controlled patterns.
That cycle keeps fuel loads manageable.
https://twitter.com/WiltonSimpson/status/2046264608021938598?s=20
When that cycle gets interrupted for decades, fuel builds until nature takes over and does the job itself – bigger, hotter, and harder to stop.
The 1998 Florida wildfires followed the same script.
Wet years grew massive vegetation, drought arrived, and thousands of fires scorched roughly 500,000 acres – including over 150 structures – before summer rains finally stopped them.
The lesson was plain.
Washington didn't take it.
What Comes Next
The spring 2026 drought is only 2 to 3% behind the all-time record for drought severity in the historical record.
Only two Dust Bowl-era months in 1934 were worse.
Wildfires nationwide have already burned more than 1.7 million acres – nearly double the ten-year average for this point in the year.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency for 91 counties this week as the same drought system swept north.
https://twitter.com/FLForestService/status/2047045362213388772?s=20
More than 50 homes have been destroyed across Georgia and Florida combined.
AccuWeather is forecasting 5.5 to 8 million total acres burned nationally this year – above last year's 5.1 million.
Agriculture Commissioner Simpson put it plainly: "We're going to be in a drought for the next two months."
The bureaucrats who built the fire-suppression philosophy that created these conditions aren't fighting these fires.
Your neighbors are.
Sources:
- Florida Department of Financial Services, "CFO Ingoglia Shares Wildfire Safety Tips Amid Extreme Drought Conditions," myfloridacfo.com, April 23, 2026.
- Jacksonville Today, "Wildfire Risks Could Grow Over Next 10 Weeks, Officials Warn," jaxtoday.org, April 21, 2026.
- CBS Miami, "More Than 130 Wildfires Burn Across Florida as Drought Fuels One of the Worst Fire Seasons in Decades," cbsnews.com/miami, April 2026.
- Christian Science Monitor, "Wildfires Already Active in Florida and US Put Focus on Forest Policy," csmonitor.com, April 15, 2026.
- Fox 10 TV, "Wildfires Across Georgia and Florida Destroy More Than 50 Homes and Force Evacuations," fox10tv.com, April 23, 2026.
- AccuWeather, "Wildfire Forecast 2026: Fires Likely to Burn Over 5.5 Million Acres," accuweather.com, April 2026.
