Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Red Flag warnings for NJ and environs, and NJ wildfire activity for April 23rd

Red Flag Warning
I knew yesterday that there could be Red Flag warnings today in New Jersey, and I was correct. The National Weather Service in Mt. Holly did issue a Red Flag Warning
for their forecast area (most of New JerseyJ, Deleware, portions of Maryland, and southeastern Pennsylvania). There are also Red Flag Warnings into the remaining portions of Maryland, New Jersey, portions of NY (including NYC and Long Island) as well as portions of Virginia and West Virginia. I have my hands full, so to speak following some scanner feed from the NJ Forest Fire Service (Div. B - Central NJ and some channels from Div. A and Div. C - southern NJ. The National Weather Service at Mt. Holly NJ has issued a fire weather watch for Thursday, April 24. To read more about today's Red Flag Warning and tomorrow's fire weather watch, read this article from the Hunterdon Democrat (article written before Red Flag Warnings were raised for northeastern New Jersey and adjoining areas of New York), but you'll get the idea. I'm not posting any links from the National Weather Service because the links expire or are revised as conditions warrant. But if you look at the right side of this page under New Jersey Forest Fire Service, there should be current information and links.

Northern and Central New Jersey
Earlier this morning and again later this afternoon, I was listening to the Div. B scanner feed from broadcastify. As I was listening, I heard mention of at least a couple of  wildfires in Div. B (central New Jersey), and possibly a wildfire in Division A (northern New Jersey) including references to Bravo 1 working two fires, possibly more. When I scanned the local media outlets about an hour ago, I saw no mention of the wildfires that I heard about on the scanner feed. If for example, these wildfires were contained at a small size, they may not warrant media attention. Of course, I'll keep my eyes open, and if I see any media reports of wildfires in northern and central New Jersey, I'll post them later.

Wildfire in southern NJ
About an hour ago, I was scanning several media outlets when I saw an article on the Press of Atlantic City reporting on a wildfire in Downe Township, NJ reporting that the fire began about 3 PM, has burned about 225 acres so far and it is burning in an area with no nearby residential areas. I then went to  the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B10 website to see if they were reporting on any wildfire activity and saw reference to this same fire in Downe Township, going on to say that two aircraft are working the fire SEAT Charlie 2 (Air Tractor 602) and the Huey Helicopter  (with bucket), Delta 6.

For more information on the fire in Downe Twshp and a discussion of today's Red Flag Warning read this report from ABC6 news in Philadelphia. There is also a report on the fire from the South Jersey Times.

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