2019 NJ fire season: Spring Hill Fire human caused?

Updated at 9 PM on April 1st: Thanks to a friend from the NJFFS for pointing me to this press release from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection announcing that the Spring Hill Fire is fully contained. The press release does not specifically state the fire was human caused, rather it seems that they have ruled out a fire caused by power lines, prescribed burns and lightning. They are asking for the public to come forward if they have any information about the fire, all tips will be kept confidential.

4:50 PM on April 1st

There has been an investigation into the cause of the Spring Hill Fire that burned 11,600 acres on the border of Burlington and Ocean Counties this past weekend. The Asbury Park Press is reporting (April 1st, 3:18 PM):

The forest fire that ripped through more than 16 square miles of the Pinelands over the weekend was caused by human activity, according to state fire investigators. … Investigators were tight-lipped about the evidence that lead them to this determination, but said they could not yet determine whether a crime had been committed.

The Asbury Park Press goes on to report on where the fire started:

The area where the fire was sparked was described as an open, sandy area near Spring Hill Road in Woodland Township in Burlington County. 

Please read the Asbury Park Press article for more information. The Asbury Press Article includes a photo gallery along with some NJFFS drone footage over the fire area (over 12 minutes long, the direct link to the drone footage may found here.

I prepared a couple of images for you based on the information in the Asbury Park Press article, locating Spring Hill Road using the search feature on Google Earth. The first image is a close-up of the area that was discussed in the article. I circled a sandy area off of Spring Hill Road. As the fire is named Spring Hill Fire, I am thinking that the sandy area I circled off of Spring Hill Road is one candidate for where the fire started. And if I am wrong, it is in the general area.

The second image is an image where I zoomed out.

I am looking around for more photo galleries that I can share with you. There were some photo galleries attached to the news articles that I shared on March 31st, I will look around for more.

I want to close by sharing a video. This is a video report from News12 New Jersey, which does have a pay wall, so I hope that all of you can see the video. This video is from earlier today before the preliminary results of the investigation were in. Early on in the video you will see a couple of aerial shots of the fire area. In the event that the script code does not work here is a direct link to the video report from News 12 New Jersey, note the video is muted and you have to click on the microphone to hear the audio (sorry about that).