The larger Bonita Springs brush fire is now eighty per cent contained at seventy acres, the first containment figure tonight that two newsrooms report the same way, while the two differ on the smaller fire

The larger of the two brush fires burning near Bonita Beach Road and Radio Tower Road in Bonita Springs is now eighty per cent contained at seventy acres, WINK News and Gulf Coast News both report.

Both outlets attribute the figures to the Florida Forest Service. WINK gives them as of 8 p.m. on Monday and Gulf Coast News as of 8.52 p.m. This is the first containment reading today that the two newsrooms carry the same way.

This desk reported on these fires three times 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. At 7.09 p.m. it had the larger at seventy acres and sixty five per cent. Those readings have now been overtaken.

The acreage on the larger fire has not moved since the 7.09 p.m. reading. It was seventy acres then and it is seventy acres now, while containment has gone from sixty five per cent to eighty.

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

The two outlets do not agree on the second fire

On the smaller fire the reporting diverges, and this desk is not able to say which reading is current.

WINK News reports that fire at 6.1 acres and ninety eight per cent contained as of 8 p.m., and locates it on Vincent Road. Gulf Coast News reports it at 4.7 acres and fifty per cent contained as of 8.52 p.m. Both credit the Florida Forest Service.

The later of those two readings is the lower one on containment and the smaller one on acreage. A fire's containment can fall if a line is lost, but its acreage does not shrink, so these are not two points on a single sequence and at least one of them is likely a relayed figure rather than a fresh one.

Both are given here with the outlet and the time attached. Neither is presented as the fact. What is common to them is that the second fire is small, that it is on Vincent Road, and that it is a matter of a few acres.

What the agencies have said

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 flames in the area. The district said the fire covered about half an acre when crews arrived and has continued to grow.

The Florida 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.

WINK News reports that fire crews are asking drivers to stay away from the traffic circle in the area. The fire district has asked 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. No agency has stated a cause for either fire. The thunder is what the caller described to the district, and nobody official has said that is what started it.

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, which has been the case all day. 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 no active alert covering Lee or Collier County, so nothing is in force over these fires. There are no active cyclones in the Atlantic. Power is normal in both counties and there is no active drinking water advisory in Collier County or the City of Fort Myers.