MILTON, Fla. (AP) — Firefighters in the Florida Panhandle continued battling an erratic fire Thursday that had scorched thousands of acres of woods, razed dozens of homes and forced some 1,600 people to evacuate from their neighborhoods.

A stretch of Interstate 10, northern Florida's main transportation artery, remained closed in both directions near Pensacola because of smoke.

Gov. Ron DeSantis met with emergency officials at a church parking lot in Milton, which was turned into staging area, in Santa Rosa County for an hour Thursday before returning to the state capital of Tallahassee, locat...