Photography > Big Cypress, Florida >

Haunting and beautiful. The main fuel for the fire in these areas is the grasses that stand about knee deep and dry out during the dry season. The fires are started by the sun as it heats the slightly flammable sap that occasionally drips off the Slash Pine trees. Only the outermost bark of the taller trees burns as do the dry Palmetto leaves. Sometimes the fire gets hot enough to boil the sap out of trees that have fallen, encrusting them with bubbles and globs of crystalline sap like amber.