Just in - Continental wildfire in Berkely Twsp (Ocean County) NJ

I got home from a couple of errands to get news of another major wildfire in New Jersey, this one in Berkeley Township (Ocean County) NJ (Section B7). This fire has been named the Continental Fire. According to my friends from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B10 website, the fire has burned about 50 acres as of 12:30 PM and evacuations are in place. I understand that the wildfire started around noon today. Firefighters on the ground are doing structure protection.

MyFoxNY is reporting about the evacuations affecting several homes. In addition, they report that

Beachwood Intermediate South School was closed just after 12:30 p.m. Parents were told not to report to the school. The Ocean County Sheriff's Dept. said that all children were going to be safely evacuated to another location (report from MyFox NY)

The Asbury Park Press has a short article about the fire. I will be posting updates as I hear them in this thread. I am monitoring the Division B scanner feed from Broadcastify. I just now heard from my friends at Downstown Aero, the tell me that the two Air Tractors (Bravo 1 and Charlie 1) are working the Continental Fire. If I am understanding the scanner feed correctly, Delta 6 (Huey Helicopter with bucket) is also working the fire.

For those of you who are wondering about the fire that is still currently burning in Downe Township (Cumberland County) NJ, my friends at Downstown Aero tell me that there were a couple of flair ups that the trucks on the ground handled. I have no updates yet about the size or containment status of this fire.

I have already made a couple of revisions to this article as information was coming in as I was writing this. I will update this article later today as I get new information.

Update April 24, 2014 at 3 PM EDT

Fire is reported at about 200 to 300 acres as I write this. Structure protection ongoing along with air support. I am just listened some livestream from ABC6 News in Philadelphia, reporting no injuries and no residences destroyed. One shed may have been destroyed. There are about 200 firefighters working the fire. My friends from Downstown Aero tell me that Alpha3 is ready and available to support wildfires in Division A (northern NJ), and that the turbo-cat is on standby for other wildfire activity in Division B (central NJ) and C (southern NJ).

Some News Reports:

• link to video, report, and pictures from CBS2NYC (recommend the video, could not get the embed code to work)
• ABC6 News Philadelphia report, pictures, and video
• ABC7 News NYC report

Update April 24, 2014 at 4:53 PM EDT

As I understand it the Continental Wildfire is burning in Berkeley and Beachwood Townships. There is still no containment and the acreage burned remains at about 300 acres.

I have been watching a 24 hour news channel, News12NJ (may not be freely available), but the News12NJ Facebook page is freely available. I heard a News12NJ report on cable that the Beachwood Intermediate South School was evacuated because the school is being used as a staging area. If you can access this link, the News12NJ coverage on the Continental Fire may be found here (may not be freely available, my apologies if the link doesn't work. There is good freely available media coverage on the links that I have provided earlier today, so don't be afraid to use them

My friends on the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B10 website are reporting (at 3:12 PM EDT) about a wildfire (size unknown) in Toms River NJ (also NJFFS Section B10) that involved a structure. An airtanker made at least one drop. One of the reasons I mention this particular fire is because I heard about it when I was listening to the online scanner feed from Division B earlier this afternoon. I am sure that I'll hear an update about this particular fire sooner or later, and I'll provide an update when I do.

Update April 24, 2014 at 7:00 PM EDT

My friends at the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B10 website are reporting that the Continental Fire (Berkeley and Beachwood Townships in Ocean County, New Jersey) has burned 307 acres and is 30 percent contained. They also are reporting that the fire in Toms River is now contained at three acres. The Toms River fire burned in marsh land, damaging one house and two sheds.

Here are some updated News Reports
ABC7 News NYC with video (4:59 PM EDT)
ABCNews6 Philadelphia with video (6 PM EDT)

I am only writing the fires that I know about. I suspect that there are other smaller wildfires that also burned today that I do not know about.

Thank-you firefighters in the air and on the ground for all you have done to keep us safe the past couple of days. And I know that there were wildfires elsewhere in the mid-atlantic, e.g. Upper Mt. Bethel PA to name one that I heard about in my wonderings. I'll try to write about some of those fires in a day or so.

Update April 24, 2014 at 9:55 PM EDT

I checked some of the media outlets that I referenced above. Based on what I have read and heard in their video updates, the Continental Fire remains at about 300 acres and is 30 percent contained. It sounds like evacuations were still in place earlier this evening and I don't know if evacuations are still in place. Thankfully, no one has been injured.

Update April 24, 2014 at 11:25 PM EDT

According to my friends at the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B10 website, the Continental Fire is now at 100 percent containment with crews continuing to work to strengthen containment lines. Acreage burned remains at 307 acres.

Update April 30, 2014 at 9:30 AM EDT

While the New Jersey Forest Fire Service Section B10 website is no longer reporting on the Continental on their home page, they have an incident page for the Continental Wildfire on their fires/incidents photo gallery page.