The larger of the two brush fires near Bonita Beach Road in Bonita Springs is now seventy acres and sixty five per cent contained, and the Florida Forest Service has crews and dozers still working both of them

The larger of the two brush fires burning near Bonita Beach Road and Radio Tower Road in Bonita Springs is now sixty five per cent contained, Gulf Coast News reports.

The Florida Forest Service put that fire at seventy acres and sixty five per cent contained as of 7.09 p.m. on Monday, according to that report. The second fire remains at four acres and nought per cent contained.

This desk reported on these fires twice earlier on Monday. At 3.54 p.m. the Forest Service had a single fire at an estimated five acres and nought per cent contained. At 5.20 p.m. it had two fires, the larger at sixty acres and fifteen per cent contained. Both of those readings have now been overtaken.

The change worth reading is the containment figure rather than the acreage. Between 5.20 p.m. and 7.09 p.m. the larger fire grew by ten acres, having grown twelvefold over the preceding ninety minutes, while the held share of its perimeter went from fifteen per cent to sixty five.

Containment is a statement about the perimeter, not about how much of the fire has gone out. At sixty five per cent, about a third of the edge of that fire is still open, and ground inside the line can still be burning.

The Bonita Springs Fire Control and Rescue District told the stations that crews responded at about 2.30 p.m. on Monday, after a resident reported hearing thunder and then seeing and feeling the heat from flames in the area. The district said the fire covered about half an acre when crews arrived and has continued to grow.

WINK News reports the fire district is sending ten fire units to assist with suppression.

The Forest Service has dozers responding to construct fire lines around the area, according to the district. The district said crews will remain on scene until the fire is extinguished and the area is safe, and it is asking people to avoid the area to give crews room to work.

Jesse Lavender of the Florida Forest Service told WINK News that drought has made for a longer fire season, that rainfall has been spotty across the county with some areas receiving more than others, and that what is needed is rain.

That is a comment about the season and not a cause finding. Nobody has stated a cause for either fire. The thunder is what the caller described to the district, and no agency has said that is what started this.

No evacuation has been ordered, no structure has been reported as threatened, no injury has been reported and no road closure has been announced. None of that is an all clear on a fire that is still open. It is what the public record holds at the time of writing.

There is no document behind this one. Neither the Bonita Springs Fire Control and Rescue District nor the Florida Forest Service has published a written release on these fires that this desk could read. The district's own site carried nothing on the fire, and the Forest Service wildfire conditions page carried no incident detail. Both agencies' accounts reach the public through the two stations, and the stations are credited that way.

Conditions were checked in the same pass. The National Weather Service has two active alerts in Florida and neither covers Lee or Collier County, so no advisory, watch or warning is in force over these fires. There are no active cyclones in the Atlantic. Power is normal in both counties.