Tuesday March 18 was not a good day to be traveling the Overseas Highway. A wildfire that started on the Miami-Dade side of the 18-Mile Stretch roared through the towering Australian pine forests that have become a ubiquitous part of the wetlands that protect the Keys.
By midafternoon the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department had closed the highway in both directions, stopping traffic in and out of the Keys, and it didn’t re-open until about 8:30 p.m. Traffic remained sluggish and the narrower Card Sound Road, the only alternative to the Overseas Highway and closer to the fire’s origin, was closed through at least mid-week.
Smoke from the fire could be seen from as far away as Key West. Comcast business and residential internet customers up and down the Keys lost service for almost 24 hours. The flames after dark looked something like a post-apocalyptic movie. Heaven help you if you were headed to Miami International Airport, a mainland doctor’s visit or emergency room, to Key West for Spring Break or just forgot to hit the bathroom before you started the trek into or out of the Keys.
Not until Sunday morning was the almost 27,000-acre fire contained — with the caveat that dry conditions and erratic winds could kick it into gear again. And while wildfires are neither unusual nor unexpected this time of year, the Keys haven’t seen the kinds of traffic catastrophes before.
We got a real-time idea of what could happen if a hurricane evacuation collided with an emergency closing of our one highway connecting the mainland and the Keys. Let’s just say that whether one thinks we ought to be halting all growth and development or opening up the islands to 3,000 or so new housing units, a concurrent evacuation and an emergency closure would be devastating. At least Tuesday, folks stuck in endless traffic lines could enjoy a spectacularly lovely day.
It took almost 12 hours to get the Overseas Highway traffic flowing Tuesday. That’s enough time for a Cat 5 hurricane to kill and injure a whole slew of people.
We’ll talk about evacuation times and overdevelopment another time. Right now I’m delighted that the fire burned darn near out of control, because (hopefully) it killed acres of Australian pines, a predator of native Keys vegetation. Good riddance to bad trees.
Known officially as Number 344, the wildfire blazed through wetlands buffering the Keys and Miami-Dade. Although there is development around the boundaries, the area is primarily marsh, brush and invasive vegetation.
Australian pines | Yay for the wildfire
That wildfire wasn’t a surprise. Ever vigilant, our not-yet-gutted National Weather Service issued red tag warnings on Monday. Rainfall this winter has been sparse. We’re only 36 percent of normal since January, down 1.69 inches. Not as dry as the same period in 2023, when we were down 3 inches, but much dryer than 2024, when a wet winter put us on the plus-2.9 inches side. Dry understory brush coupled with the high winds on Tuesday set the stage for an inferno.
We don’t do prescribed burns in those huge natural areas, unlike the routine burns on Big Pine Key. That means years of scrubby grass and vegetation are tinder for the smallest spark when conditions are right, as they were Tuesday. Fire, cutting and chemicals are the only ways to kill Australian pines, and because chemicals would be devastating to the environment and cutting them down is virtually impossible, I’m hoping the wildfire took out hundreds of those invasive trees, their winged-seed spawn and thousands of seedlings.
How bad are Australian pines? Here’s what the scientists say: “(It) is a fast growing tree that changes habitat, outcompetes native species and contributes to soil erosion. Dense thickets displace native dune and beach vegetation by changing the light, temperature, soil chemistry and hydrology of the habitat. Leaf litter covering the ground releases chemicals that inhibit the growth of other plants.
“The pollen causes strong respiratory allergic reactions. This tree offers no wildlife habitat, and displaces native songbirds except for migrating goldfinches that feed on the seeds. It also destroys breeding sites of threatened or endangered species in the Everglades, particularly nesting sites of the American crocodile. Nesting sites for the green sea turtle, gopher tortoise and loggerhead turtle are at risk also because baby turtles can get trapped in the maze that is their shallow root system. The root system can also break sewer and water lines and break pavement.”
The ONLY good (and I use that term loosely) Australian pines are those at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. There, the pine grove provides shade. The existing trees are protected under an agreement with the state and managed successfully by a grassroots local group, Save Our Pines, in conjunction with the Department of Environmental Protection and park rangers.
Shade is good and I love sitting under them. But every time I do, I see the damage they’ve created, from barren soil underneath to sprawling shallow roots and falling limbs.
Better to plant native species to replace the Australian pines, except, whoops, nothing will grow under them. So we’ll manage what we’ve got — and pluck up every seedling that escapes the beach. And, please, if you’ve got these things growing in your yard, chop ’em down. Because if you don’t, your yard and your neighbors’ yards for miles around are going to regret it.
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