Wildfire in New Jersey State Park Burns 1,000 Acres
Fire crews in New Jersey were working overnight to contain a wildfire that was reported in a state park on Saturday and quickly grew to 1,000 acres, officials said.
The New Jersey Forest Fire Service reported the blaze, known as the California Branch Wildfire, in Wharton State Forest on Saturday afternoon. Two campgrounds were evacuated, and several roads in the area were closed. The forest is about 30 miles southeast of Philadelphia.
As of 11 p.m., the wildfire had grown to 1,000 acres across Burlington and Camden counties, the state fire service said on social media. It was only 20 percent contained.
But no injuries had been reported, and the agency said that the fire was moving away from 18 structures it had been threatening. The statewide risk of fire danger was only moderate, the second-lowest classification of a five-tier scale, according to the agency's website.
New Jersey's wildfire season typically peaks between mid-March and mid-May. Officials worry that the state may be in for a rough one this year because it had an exceptionally dry fall and the third-driest January on record.
As of March 13, the state forest fire service had already responded since early January to 381 wildfires that burned a total of 1,242 acres, according to data from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. That was a 266 percent increase over the same period in 2024.
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