Florida

Greg Pallone

Andrew Knapp

Crews contained a brush fire late Monday afternoon, letting the 15-acre blaze burn itself out in a heavily wooded area near State Road 407 and Interstate 95 in Titusville.

The Florida Division of Forestry cleared vegetation around the blaze and started a “backfire” to burn inside those lines, said Division Chief Scott Gaenicke of the Titusville Fire Department.

HUDSON — Authorities have arrested a young man accused of injuring four people in a hit-and-run accident with an ATV over the weekend.

The Florida Highway Patrol says Michael Dennis Floyd, 17, was driving his pickup west on Denton Avenue about 2 a.m. Saturday when he collided with an all-terrain vehicle going south on Hicks Road. FHP said the ATV ran through the stop sign.

Mark S. Krzos

Four ATVers had a little scare Saturday while riding on Rodas Drive in Bonita Springs.

According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office report, shortly before 3 p.m., a light blue truck pulled out of a driveway in front of the ATVers, who swerved to avoid a crash.

Mary Wozniak

World-famous photographer and environmental activist Clyde Butcher is rallying residents to attend a Collier County commission meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday to protest a proposed off-road vehicle park in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

The park is proposed by Miami-Dade County on 1,600 acres in the eastern end of the preserve. Since some of the land is in Collier County, Collier also has to approve it.

Mark S. Krzos

The eastern end of Bonita Beach Road will be off-limits within the next few weeks.

Oakbrook Properties will install a locked gate a few hundred yards east of the gated community of VillageWalk.

Ludmilla Lelis

Besides Volusia, beach driving is allowed in at least five other Florida counties, as well as Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, according to a federal report.

Included among those are eight national parks that permit off-road vehicles, including Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, Padre Island National Seashore in Texas and Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia, according to National Park Service officials.

A 19-year-old Brooksville man driving an ATV on a roadway tried to outrun a sheriff's deputy, even popping a wheelie as he fled, before crashing and being arrested.

The Hernando County Sheriff's Office said Brian Carpenter of 16129 Sarasota St. was heading south on Orlando Avenue on Tuesday evening when he nearly struck a deputy's cruiser.

Susanne Cervenka

Vandals hit a Malabar church Sunday night, cutting power to the building and smashing a water pipe.

It was the second attack at the God's Healing Holiness Christian Church at 1690 Marie St. in a little over a week, and the fifth in the past two years.