NJ - Wildland fires Redux

I have just returned from being on vacation in northeastern Vermont for two weeks where I had limited access to e-mail from wireless hotspots. I am going be making some posts to catch up on some of the goings on wildfire wise while I was away. I have one more post to make in my series on the TBM Avenger, look for it later today or tomorrow.

There have been a couple of larger wildland fires here in New Jersey.

1. The Great Egg Harbor Fire burned 93 acres in Atlantic County on July 27, 2010.
2. The Dan's Bridge Fire burned 677 acres in Ocean County, in or near the Bass River State Forest, on July 26, 2010.

Maps of these fires may be found on the incident history page of the NJ Incident Management Team Type II. The NJ Incident Management Team Type II has a photo gallery page for the Dan's Bridge Fire.

There is a third larger fire in NJ (the Sun Fish Pond Fire, this one is currently burning in a steep and remote area near the Appalachian Trail about three to four miles north of where Route 80 goes through the Delaware Water Gap. See the google earth image showing the approximate location of the fire (from the current large incident map -- Aug 9, 2010 -- active fire mapping program from the USDA Forest Service. The latest daily map will be found here and may not show the Sunfish Pond Fire if it is no longer active.

As of Sunday evening, August 8, it had burned about 250 acres and was 70 percent contained. The fire was reported by a hiker on Friday, Aug. 6. The NJ Forest Fire Service did burnout operations on Aug 7. One of their helos was used for bucket operations. Hiking trails in the area have been closed, and will continue to be closed today. A backpackers campsite near the origin of the wildfire was evacuated on Friday and remains closed. A recent article from the NJ Herald may be found here. In addition, you may want to see this wildlandtfire hotlist thread on the Sunfish Pond Fire.

The Press of Atlantic City has an article (August 1, 2010) on the busy fire season here in NJ, it may be found here.