As I write this on November 13 we are experiencing an enhanced risk of wildfire spread through early this evening on the 13th in much of New Jersey (except for the five northeastern counties, southeastern Pennsylvania. Delaware, and the Maryland eastern shore. This is from the special weather statement issued by the Mt. Holly Office of the National Weather Service at 11:28 AM on Wednesday, Nov. 13 2013:
...ENHANCED RISK OF WILDFIRE SPREAD THROUGH EARLY EVENING...
LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY LEVELS, GUSTY WINDS AND DRY FINE FUELS WILL
CONTINUE AN ELEVATED RISK FOR THE SPREAD OF WILDFIRES THROUGH
EARLY EVENING. MINIMUM RELATIVE HUMIDITY VALUES IN THE LOW 30S
WITH WIND GUSTS OF 20 TO 25 MPH ARE EXPECTED BEFORE WIND DECREASES BY
EARLY EVENING.
According to the New Jersey State Forest Fire Service's (NJFFS) website, Division A (northern NJ) and Division C (southern NJ) are experiencing moderate wildfire risk today with Division B (central NJ) experiencing a high risk of wildfire danger. The NJFFS does have a webpage where they report wildfire danger levels, permits, and restrictions that may be found
here. This page is updated as conditions change so depending on when you are reading this article the information that you see will be different, but you'll get an idea about current fire danger current fire statistics, and current fire danger. You will see a map showing the counties that make up each of the three NJFFS Divisions (A,B, and C).
I wrote a few days ago about the dry weather that I've been experiencing in my little corner of NJ, along with linking to some media reports about some wildfire activity or concerns in the eastern region of the US.
Before I get to wildfire activity that I know about in NJ and other states in the east, I want to continue with the dry weather we've been experiencing. In the image below, you can see that northern and portions of central New Jersey were abnormally dry on November 5, 2013.
direct link to map
And here is the same map for the United States.
Todd B. Bates, the EnviroGuy from the Asbury Park Press, wrote an article yesterday on the dry conditions in New Jersey and the related wildfire danger yesterday. He has a few good maps from NOAA in his article. Todd's article may be found here. Thanks to my friends at the NJFFS SectionB10 website for providing me with the link to this article.
Moving on to recent wildfire activity in New Jersey:
An 80 acre wildfire in a remote area of Atlantic County NJ is now contained, go here and here to read about the fire and see some short video clips. The fire is now contained.
In addition to reporting on the Atlantic County wildfire, my friends from the NJFFS SectionB10 website reported on these wildfires in their current wildfire activity area (information may be different depending on when you access their site):
two wildfires totaling two or three acres in Monroe Township (Middlesex County;
a 2.5 acre wildfire in Allaire State Park in Howell Township (Monmouth County),
and a 13-acre wildfire in Lakewood NJ (Ocean County) not far from the Garden State Parkway.
lists only one large fire, the Smoke Hole that started on Nov. 10, 2013 in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia (WV-MIF-130010) that has burned 1,400 acres to date and is 20 percent contained. According to today's morning briefing:
The fire is burning in hardwood litter and blow-down. Crews are cutting hand-line. A Type-3 helicopter is doing bucket work. A major gas pipeline is threatened and secondary residences are threatened. Steep difficult terrain is impeding containment efforts.
According to an article dated November 12, 2013 from
Your4State crews from five states are assisting West Virginia crews in fighting the fire.
There may be other smaller wildfires in other areas of the eastern region that I do not know about that either are burning or are now contained.