Why New Jersey Is Actually a Place with Major Wildfire Risk
A forest fire that erupted in New Jersey and spread overnight highlights the major wildfire risk faced by the state and other urban areas
Firefighters try to extinguish a fast-moving brush fire along on November 19, 2024 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
A forest fire that erupted in New Jersey yesterday morning was spurred by winds and dry weather, fulfilling a prediction by state officials that the state would see an active fire season this spring.
The Jones Road Fire has burned 12,000 acres, more than the average area burned by wildfires in the state in an entire year. A drought warning has been in effect in New Jersey since November 2024, which means that many drought status indicators, such as current drinking water supplies, are below normal. And after a busy fall fire season, spring kicked off with an above-average number of fires as well. The Jones Road Fire, which forced evacuations in Ocean County, New Jersey, threatened hundreds of homes and businesses in a populated area.
How Did the New Jersey Fire Spread?
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State fire officials have not yet determined the cause of the fire, but it grew in dry, windy conditions. The blaze started at the edge of the Pinelands, a region of pine forests known for its wildfire risk. In fact, the Pinelands’ landscape has been shaped by fire—if it didn’t regularly burn, the ecosystem would transition into an oak forest, says David Robinson, New Jersey’s state climatologist and a professor at Rutgers University.
“Traditionally, spring is fire season down in the Pinelands, so as far as seasonal timing to this fire, there’s nothing unusual,” Robinson says. “The fact that [the fire] spread so quickly may be a testament to the fact that it hasn’t rained in over 10 days.”
Because of New Jersey’s population density, the state experiences a lot of what research ecologist Michael Gallagher of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Northern Research Station calls “interface fires,” which are fires that start where human habitation bumps up against wildland. “Fires as small as an acre frequently threaten homes,” Gallagher says.
But the Jones Road fire moved quickly into an exurb-type environment with numerous buildings in its path. Wind-borne embers sped the fire along, starting spot fires that ignited new blazes, Gallagher says. His research has shown that in the spring, the sun tends to heat the south side of pine trees in the forests of the Pinelands, causing the bark to dry and curl. These curls ignite easily in a fire. Winds blowing from the north are then well poised to catch these tiny flaming brands, blowing them ahead of the main fire.
How Did New Jersey’s Drought Worsen Fire Conditions?
October 2024 was the driest month in the state in 130 years, Robinson says. Though fires generally peak in spring in New Jersey, it saw a busy fire season in the fall, as did much of the Northeast.
Winter brought some relief. This year, however, New Jersey’s fire season, which typically starts in March, began in earnest in January, state officials said in a March 3 news conference. Between January 1 and March 3, the state saw 214 fires burn through 514 acres, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection reported. In comparison, 69 fires burned 21 acres during the same period in 2024.
“We’re continuing just where we left off last year,” said state fire chief Bill Donnelly in the briefing.
Precipitation improved somewhat in March and April, Robinson says, but it hasn’t recovered to the point that the state is out of the drought. “The news is all kind of good, but we still have to remember we are in a drought warning,” he says. And while the overall trend has been toward more moisture, the Pinelands area had been going through a mini dry spell before the fire began, with almost two weeks without rain, he says. The sandy soil and pine needles in the regions don’t hold on to water for long.
“This area dries out very quickly,” Robinson says.
That means the weather was ripe for fire, and wind gusts of up to 25 miles per hour quickly whipped the fire toward inhabited areas.
“Last night [the fire] was on the eastern end of the Pinelands, near the [Garden State] Parkway, and it hopped the Parkway and headed toward the coast in a populated area. So [this was] a real worrisome situation,” Robinson says.
How Will Climate Change Affect New Jersey’s Fire Risk?
Wildfires are aggressively managed in New Jersey, with prescribed burns to reduce fuel and quick suppression when fires do ignite, Robinson says. These evolving actions should tamp down any climate-change-related increase in risk and make it difficult to compare the state’s fire outlook with a preindustrial “normal.” New Jersey has a history of large fires, including a multiple-fire outbreak in 1963 known as Black Saturday, which burned 183,000 acres and killed seven people.
Long-term projections suggest the state will get a little wetter in a warming world, though rain is not expected to become more frequent, but rather will likely be heavier when it does fall. Warming temperatures could nudge the state’s fire risk a little bit higher as fuels dry out faster, however.
“Things become volatile pretty quickly,” Robinson says.
