The fire burned right up to the road and jumped the pavement, said Lt. Greg Bueno. About a mile of U.S. 41 near the Lee-Charlotte county line was closed for an hour and a half during rush hour, he said.
The 125-acre brush fire was near Herons Glen, a residential development.
Drivers had to turn around because there was no alternate routes.
Tamiami Trial is one of two east-west routes crossing the Florida Everglades. It runs between Miami and Naples and is a two-lane road for much of the way. The other, Alligator Alley-Interstate 75, was closed for several hours Tuesday night because of a brush fire near the Broward-Collier county line.
Meanwhile, firefighters contained a nearly 3,000 acre wildfire in north Florida near the Georgia state line, said Gene Madden, spokesman for the Florida Department of Forestry. Rain helped contain the blaze in the remote John Bethea State Forest, north of Baxter.
Three people suffered minor injuries in that fire, and a junkyard was burned, Madden said.
Another north Florida fire in the Santa Fe swamp was expected to be 100 percent contained on Saturday, Madden said.
