Mark Lane: 25 years ago, a summer lost to wildfire in Palm Coast

Has it really been 25 years, a quarter century? Why yes, it has. On June 6, 1998, a wildfire spread to the Palm Coast neighborhood of Seminole Woods and destroyed 20 homes. What followed were months of wildfires across Volusia, Flagler and Brevard counties. Wildfire summer.

By July 3, Flagler County was evacuated because of wildfire danger − the entire county. Everybody. Interstate 95 quickly turned into a multi-county traffic jam. ("Florida County Evacuated on Fear of Merged Fires. Statewide more than 100,000 have been ordered to leave" was the headline on the front page of The New York Times.)

Traditionally, that would have been the week of the race formally known as the Firecracker 400 but then called the Pepsi 400. The race was canceled due to the fires and moved to the fall, something that at the time felt like a violation of the Natural Order of Racing. (I know, the 400 is now a late-summer thing, but that's a recent development.)

Previous coverage:In 1998, Volusia and Flagler were burning. A look at those historic wildfires.

More from Mark Lane:Springtime in Florida means wildfires

All midsummer events were called off. No fireworks. No outdoor concerts. Baseball games were canceled due to smoke. Tourists looking for a beach checked out alternatives that weren't in the national news. Downtown was deserted. It was the Year There Was No Fourth of July.

People who are used to the occasional wildfire and road closure due to smoke might wonder what the big deal was, but this was of an entirely different magnitude than anything experienced before or since. More than 2,000 fires burned half a million acres.

The fires had been months in the making. After a wet summer and unusually wet winter, the underbrush grew like crazy. Then, spring saw a drought that dried everything out until it was good and crispy. Summer arrived hot and early that year without the usual afternoon rains. Hundred-degree temperatures and rainfall 5 inches below average in June. Perfect fire conditions.

All that summer, mornings stayed dark longer as a smokey pall settled over the area. In the evenings, though, the sunsets could be spectacular – pinks, corals, neons. On the beach, smoke would combine with sea spray into a salty sea smog that made you rub your eyes. More than once, I walked onto my driveway to find it had rained ash. Flecks of grey coated my windshield.

Through July and August, I got calls from people I knew from out of state − remember kids, this was before the Age of Social Media. "The TV news says your town is on fire. Is everything OK over there?" they'd ask.

President Bill Clinton even flew in. He spoke with people burned out of their homes, felt everybody's pain, and was briefed on the situation. He stood on a stage in a tent at Daytona International Airport surrounded by firefighters and lauded their labors. He wanly pitched the place as still open for business even though it wasn't really. "If you haven't taken your vacation yet, and you want to know where to come, give the people in this area an economic boost," he said to grateful applause.

For weeks after the worst was over, this was still a dramatically altered environment. When I drove along Williamson Boulevard, the landscape looked especially bleak looking out to the west: Scattered flames flickering amid the dark shapes of limbless trees, smoke hugging the ground. The same along the interstates. Into August, you'd notice scattered small flames burning themselves out near the roadside.

In stores, disposable air-filtering masks were still on display by the front doors along with back-to-school specials. They were the summer fashion that year. People even wore masks to the beach.

By September, things got back to normal but I had lost a summer that I wouldn't get back. Which is why, anytime the wind shifts and I smell the familiar odor of wood burning, I get anxious. Even now. A hurricane will blow in and out of town in a day, but wildfires out of control can be a spreading threat for days into weeks.

A lot of people have moved here since then. Flagler County had only a quarter of the population that it has now. Florida has a lot of newcomers and population churn so most people don't have any memory of that summer.

Could it happen again? I suppose under the right confluence of conditions, although we are better at fire prevention these days and controlled burns are more frequent and systematic. Clearing out Flagler County and the western Daytona Beach area would certainly be an operation on an altogether different scale.

Still, I prefer to think that losing a summer was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Which is a relief. We only get so many.    

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.