Worse, after she and her husband Paul left their home, they had not heard from their son who also lives in Flagler County. Two days before the evacuation, Turynagy could see flames through the windows of her home. Everywhere, smoke hung in the air like a thick curtain. The homes are spread far apart, often situated on double lots or between two vacant lots thick with vegetation. Record heat and drought conditions blanched grass and trees that normally flourish in these open spaces, providing plenty of fuel for fires.
Flames burn at road's edge.
Although it's always a terrible loss for any family to lose a home to fire, it is a particularly frightening prospect for residents like Turynagy and Czeslawa Janowicz, a fellow Palm Coast resident Turynagy befriended at the shelter. Like many in their community, these women are senior citizens who retired to Flagler County with their husbands. In fact, the day of the evacuation marked only the third month the couple has lived in their newly constructed Palm Coast home. Elsewhere over the weekend, fires burned close to West Cocoa in Brevard County and around Plantation Pines, a community in the Ormond Beach area of Volusia County. The fires cast a smoky haze over Interstate 4 and left trees near Daytona Beach charred and brittle like blackened match sticks.