As weather and other conditions have allowed, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service continues with doing prescribed burns. A prescribed burn is planned for today in northern New Jersey (Division A):
Recent prescribed burns were done on
March 30th
March 26th
While we are in the early days of the spring wildfire season which started in New Jersey on March 15, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) continues to conduct prescribed burns (Rx) on NJ Dept of Environmental Protections (DEP). In addition the NJFFS has an application process for private landowners wanting prescribed burns on their property, some of this prescribed burns on privately owned lands are being conducted today, March 20th according to the NJFFS Prescribed Burn Fire Dashboard. The NJFFS Prescribed Burn Fire Dashboard is a map that lists Rx burns being conducted on the current date known as active burns and scheduled Rx burns that are planned to be conducted over the next five days, if there are not active or scheduled burns the map will be empty. Because the dashboard is updated daily and there is no mechanism to link to a static version on the NJFFS website I am not making a copy to display. But I can see and I hope that you will trust me that today, March 20th, prescribed burns on privately owned lands are being conducted across the State (Sussex County in northern NJ, Mercer County in central NJ, and Cape May County in southern NJ. If you want a better idea of where these counties are located you may follow the above link to the NJFFS Prescribed Burn Fire Dashboard and zoom in a little to see county names, this should work outside of the prescribed burn seasons.
I do know that prescribed burns were conducted on March 16th through the 19th, both from the NJ Forest Fire Service Facebook page and from e-mail notifications that I receive. However, unlike for prescribed burns done earlier in March there is no listing of the exact location of these burns, nor are past burns shown on the NJFFS Prescribed Burn Fire Dashboard. I can see from todays Dashboard the prescribed burns are scheduled across all of New Jersey in the next five days (March 21 to 26) in Sussex County (northern NJ), Somerset County (central NJ), Monmouth County (central NJ) Ocean County (southern NJ), and Atlantic County (southern NJ).
Direct link to video from Eyewitness News ABC7NY on YouTube
As we enter the spring wildfire season in New Jersey today, I am reminded that last years wildfire season in New Jersey was the worse in at least ten years. According to the report, data from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection reveals that 1,194 wildfires burned approximately 18,000 acres in 2023. If you watch this short video, under two minutes, you will learn from NJ Forest Fire Service officials about the important role that prescribed burns have in reducing wildfire risk.
After some recent rains in New Jersey, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service conducted prescribed burns on March 12th through 14th across New Jersey.
I am writing this post with some information from the NJ Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) on a change in their prescribed burning a couple of days later than intended as I was following the Smokehouse Fire in the panhandle of Texas (more on that in a later post). Anyway, in 2024 the NJFFS has increased their prescribed burning program to hopefully to prescribed burns on 25,000 acres, up from 21,900 acres. This increase is in response, at least partially, to the 2023 wildfire season in NJ where 14 major wildfires (100+ acres) burned approximately 18,000 acres in New Jersey. This made 2023 the worst wildfire season in 20 years. Prescribed burns can benefit the health of the ecosystem as well as safeguarding nearby towns.
The NJFFS conducts prescribed burns on public and privately owned lands.
The NJFFS issued a new press release on February 27th about their prescribed program which may be found here. Perhaps being aware of this press release from the NJFFS, New Jersey Advance Media has a nice February 27th article referencing this information and other information about the benefits of the prescribed burn program. The spring wildfire season in New Jersey starts on March 15th.
Both the New York City and the Philadelphia local CBS stations carried reports on the importance of the NJFFS prescribed burn program. I embed both of these videos here. I think the importance of these two report is to get the word out to both northern and southern New Jersey. In addition, if you watch both videos you will see prescribed burns in two different ecosystems.
Direct link to video from CBS New York on Youtube
Recent snowfall in northern and central New Jersey probably means that conditions (wet soil?) are not conducive for the New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) to conduct prescribed burns in these areas. This is not the case in southern New Jersey where you can see from the embedded Facebook post from the NJFFS on February 21st that they conducted prescribed burns on that date in the following locations:
In addition the NJFFS did prescribed burns in these locations in the last five days:
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service continues to do prescribed burns. Here is a list of prescribed burns done by the NJ Forest Fire Service between February 8th and February 11th, I got this information from the NJ Forest Fire Service’s Facebook page starting with their February 8th post. I think but am not sure that the NJ Forest Fire Service will post about prescribed burns when they are scheduled, usually in the late morning. As a citizen of New Jersey I appreciate these prescribed burns are done so that excessive underbrush can be removed minimizing fire danger. Thanks to all Division of the NJ Forest Fire Service for conducting these prescribed burns.
February 8th
February 9th
February 10th
February 11th
It is late winter here in New Jersey and that means that the New Jersey Forest Fire Service is ramping up to do prescribed burns. The prescribed burning season is from October 1 to March 31, see the NJ Forest Fire Service About Prescribed Burn Page and click on planning. I know that the NJ Forest Fire Service did at least two prescribed burns on February 5th, both in Ocean County.
I follow the NJ Forest Fire Service on Facebook where prescribed burns happening on a specific day may be listed, as is the case for February 5th prescribed burns. The New Jersey Forest Fire Service has a map of prescribed fire notifications listing active and scheduled prescribed burns that may be found here. To learn more about prescribed burns see this 2023 news release from the NJ Forest Fire Service.
I can say that over the years that when I have driven in or through areas where a prescribed burn is being conducted there is signage alerting drivers and while I have never driven on a road that was temporarily closed to a prescribed burn, I assume that there is road closed signage with detours posted.
I am updating this post to embed a post below from the NJ Forest Fire Service notifying us of prescribed burns scheduled for today, February 7th.
Finally, The NJ Forest Fire Service Sections A7/8 shared a notice from the Mercer County Park Commission on their Facebook page this morning. Their Facebook page requires that you have a Facebook account so out of deference to those of you who are not on Facebook, I am not including the link to their site but I am embedding the post from the Mercer County Park Commission:
