http://www.boston.com/dailynews/109/nation/Florida_Gulf_Coast_fires_out_o:.shtml

Florida Gulf Coast fires out of control

By Pat Leisner, Associated Press, 4/19/2001 23:54

NORTH PORT, Fla. (AP) An arsonist set a dozen fires that threatened homes on Florida's parched Gulf Coast on Thursday, further taxing firefighters who are trying to tame a 6,000-acre wildfire.

One home was destroyed and dozens of homes and vehicles were damaged by the arson fires that burned a total of 500 acres south of Tampa. Scores of residents were evacuated.

''It started shortly after noon and it is of suspicious origin,'' said North Port Fire Capt. Ellen Kehoe.

''One home was definitely lost and others were in danger and probably damaged,'' said Kehoe, as she stood at a makeshift command post on the road separating Charlotte and Sarasota counties.

In a county reserve near North Port, winds whipped a 6,000-acre fire out of control. One house has been destroyed by the fire, which began Wednesday as a county-approved burn.

The 200 firefighters in the area were too busy to assess further damages.

''We are literally working from one block to the next block on these arson-set fires,'' said Ty Alexander, a spokesman for the Florida Division of Forestry.

About 50 homeowners spent the day standing by helplessly, not knowing if their homes, cars and pets had gone up in flames.

Anthony Garguilo's family had lived in their home less than a week when a knock at the door alerted him to a wall of flames moving into his back yard.

''You've got fire in your back yard, leave now,'' the firefighter told Garguilo and his 15-year-old son Nicholas. ''I grabbed my son and they made a path for me and we got out.''

Between 70 and 80 residents asked to leave their homes were later allowed to return. Police cordoned off an intersection leading into the development of middle-class homes set amid woods and scrub brush.

Inside the subdivision, yards were charred right up to the homes where firefighters sprayed flame-retardant foam to protect the structures. Trees were reduced to stumps and piles of brush to burning embers.

Mike May set sprinklers on his own home's roof and climbed on a neighbor's roof to spray it with a hose. Fire crews battled a roaring blaze from their truck, parked in a narrow grassy corridor swamped so thick with smoke they were barely visible.

Mary Santuzzi was on her way home with her 4-year-old daughter Lauren when she found her block trapped by flames.

''She tried to get in. Fire was all around. The fire was jumping the road and everything,'' said Ralph Santuzzi, her husband. ''She turned around and got out of there, thank God.''

Aggravating firefighting efforts were afternoon winds, low humidity and tinder-dry conditions from a three-year drought that shows no signs of easing.

Florida had been hit with 2,000 wildfires this fire season that burned more than 138,000 acres and damaged or destroyed 43 homes.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 2001