Fires Close Highways, Force Mass Evacuations

Wildfires forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people Wednesday as blazes burned several houses and closed 125 miles of Interstate 95, the major north-south highway along the East Coast.

A fire west of Ormond Beach in Volusia County continued to grow throughout the day until authorities announced a mandatory evacuation for about 10,000 of the city’s 35,000 residents. Ormond Beach is north of Daytona Beach.

Some residents were taken to a shelter at a high school in Port Orange, but authorities were scrambling for other places where people could go.

There were 20,000 people told to seek shelter in Volusia County.

Up to 3,000 people in and around the towns of Mims and Scottsmoor were ordered to leave their homes after fires pushed around by shifting winds advanced on their property. In Brevard County, up to 3,000 residents were ordered to leave their homes, some for a third time, as the fires threatened the rural landscape.

Flames injured at least five firefighters in Brevard County, three with second-degree burns.

Mobile homes were burning in the Scottsmoor area, just inland from Cape Canaveral. A wildfire that jumped over U.S. 1 in the same area damaged a gas station and a Dairy Queen. I-95 was shut down from Titusville to Jacksonville as four houses near Mims became enveloped in the flames. A 16-mile stretch of U.S. 1, the other major north-south coastal highway, was also closed.