Orange Creek Restoration Area group site with shelter

public land records

Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.

FREE by the agency's own published statement plus binding rule. SJRWMD camping page (https://www.sjrwmd.com/lands/recreation/camping/), downloaded raw this fire and string-matched locally: "Campsites are available to individuals or groups and are free of charge" and "Camping on District lands is governed by Chapter 40C-9.300, Florida Administrative Code." The rule text itself was downloaded this fire from flrules.org (https://www.flrules.org/gateway/ruleNo.asp?id=40C-9.300): 40C-9.300 allows primitive camping on District Lands "only in designated camping sites" and creates no fee. STAY LIMIT: "no greater than seven continuous days or 30 total days per year per District Land" (40C-9.300(5)); the camping page repeats it as "a maximum of 7 consecutive days and annual maximum of 30 days on any property." RESERVATION: required and free. "Campsite reservations may be made up to 90 days in advance and must be made at least 48 hours in advance (before 1 p.m. two days prior to the desired arrival date)." The District does not say on the camping page whether THIS particular site is drive-in or hike-in, so camp_type is left NULL rather than guessed - confirm when you book. TENTS ONLY: "Only primitive tent camping is allowed. RVs, trailers, truck or van campers are prohibited." "Dispersed camping is prohibited" - hence dispersed=0. NOT A PARTNERSHIP PROPERTY: checked against SJRWMD's own partnership list (https://www.sjrwmd.com/lands/recreation/partnership/) and the partner-managed block on the camping page. Caravelle Ranch WMA, Lake Norris CA, Ralph E. Simmons/Tiger Bay/Jennings State Forests and Lake George FOREST are run by FWC, the Lake County Water Authority and the Florida Forest Service and were all excluded from this ingest; Lake George CONSERVATION AREA is a different, District-run property and was kept. SEASONAL/FIRE: no seasonal closure is published for District camping, but the page warns that "land management activities, such as prescribed burns, project construction and timber thinning operations, take precedence over camping" and sites can shut at short notice - check the District's recreation announcements page before you drive. Fires only in designated campfire rings, and "obey local burn bans"; firewood may be collected from the ground, no cutting of standing trees dead or alive. COORDINATE: the District's OWN mapped campsite point, pulled live this fire from services.arcgis.com/s8wtJX9suxFen6TA/.../Management_Area_Campsite/FeatureServer/0 ("Mapped public recreational campsites located on District lands"), outSR=4326. Layer attributes: management area "Orange Creek Restoration Area", designation "Group Site with Shelter", county Marion. WATER: the campsite layer has no water column, so none is claimed here. The camping page says only that SOME drive-in sites have "a non-potable water pitcher pump." Assume none, carry your own, and do not treat any surface water here as drinkable. NEAREST TOWN: McIntosh, about 8.8 mi in a straight line (US Census Bureau 2024 Gazetteer place internal point). STRAIGHT-LINE, NOT DRIVING DISTANCE. Ingest 2026-08-16 10:52:36 (fire 800, FL thin-state fill). RE-VERIFIED 2026-08-18 (night shift, FL backlog review). Re-fetched LIVE this fire: the District's own campsite layer https://services.arcgis.com/s8wtJX9suxFen6TA/arcgis/rest/services/Management_Area_Campsite/FeatureServer/0 (69 features, no transfer limit hit) and the SJRWMD camping page https://www.sjrwmd.com/lands/recreation/camping/ . The row's OBJECTID is still present in the layer and its coordinate still agrees to within 25 m. The camping page still carries the exact sentences this row was built on -- "Campsites are available to individuals or groups and are free of charge", "Only primitive tent camping is allowed", "Dispersed camping is prohibited", "Camping is limited to a maximum of 7 consecutive days and annual maximum of 30 days on any property", and the reference to Chapter 40C-9.300, F.A.C. The property is NOT on the camping page's live partnership list (Caravelle Ranch WMA, Faver-Dykes SP, Herky Huffman/Bull Creek WMA, Lake Norris CA, Princess Place Preserve, Ralph E. Simmons Memorial SF, St. Sebastian River Preserve SP, Triple N Ranch WMA). No coordinate duplicate against any published FL camp -- checked on COORDINATES, not name, against all 43 published FL rows at a 250 m threshold. PROPERTY PAGE CORROBORATES: https://www.sjrwmd.com/lands/recreation/orange-creek/ (fetched this fire) lists Recreational activities as "Hiking, wildlife viewing, bicycling, horseback riding, camping and seasonal hunting." CAVEAT: the announcements page records a pine thinning within the Orange Creek Restoration Area, work anticipated to continue through May 15, 2027 -- a caution, not a closure. DECISION: status pending -> approved.

US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.

On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.