The Nation - News from May 1, 1989

A drenching thunderstorm reduced a 13,000-acre fire, much of it in the Osceola National Forest in northern Florida, to only a few smoldering hot spots, fire officials said. About 200 firefighters and 41 bulldozers remained on the scene to watch the hot spots that remained from the fire, which doubled in size Saturday after shifting winds drove an 80-foot-high wall of flames northward toward State Road 2. The firefighters, including 40 members of a specially trained squad from the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas, succeeded in stopping flames from spreading northward Saturday night, ending the threat to virgin pine land and the Okefenokee Swamp across the border in Georgia. Authorities said that the fire apparently started when the transmission in a log-moving vehicle used in commercial timber operations broke down and ignited woods just outside the national forest.