I-75, which crosses south Florida from State Road 29 in Collier County to U.S. 27 in Broward County, reopened shortly before midnight Tuesday, after winds pushed the fires north, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
Though flames around the highway had died down by early Wednesday morning, blazes continued to burn elsewhere, and troopers were monitoring the area, said FHP Lt. Roger Reyes.
``They're sporadic all over out there,'' he said of the fires. ``It depends on Mother Nature and the shift of the wind.''
The Alley is one of two east-west routes crossing the Florida Everglades. The other, Tamiami Trial between Miami and Naples, is a two-lane road for much of the way.
Meanwhile, a wildfire that consumed 1,300 acres in southwest Florida, prompting nearby Florida Gulf Coast University to cancel classes on Tuesday, was 100 percent contained, said Gerry Lacavera, wildfire mitigation specialist for the state Division of Forestry.
At one point over the holiday weekend, the fire got within 40 feet of the campus, and the smoke was so thick that an assistant campus fire chief couldn't locate his truck in daylight, said Robert Harris, the campus police chief.
Classes were expected to resume Wednesday.
In north Florida, more than 100 firefighters in the remote John Bethea State Forest, north of Baxter near the Georgia border, gained ground on a blaze covering nearly 3,000 acres. The blaze was 75 percent contained by late Tuesday with the help of a half-inch of rain on part of it, according to Gene Madden, a spokesman with the forestry division.
Officials earlier decided to keep State Highway 2 closed for the rest of the week because of the number of emergency vehicles traveling on the road.
