Fire-Rescue News- Mays Landing wildfire extinguished, wind gusts create fire-friendly conditions
By ROB SPAHR Staff Writer | Posted: Saturday, May 8, 2010 | 1 comment
With a link to Atlantic City Electric's online outage map
Emergency crews are battling numerous wildfires and power outages throughout southern New Jersey this evening.
New Jersey State Forest Fire Service Division Fire Warden Bert Plante said that a massive wildfire along Route 70 in Burlington County had scorched about 500 acres for forest near Pemberton Township and that crews were still battling it as of 6:30 p.m. The smoke from the blaze was.....Continue Reading
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reported being seen as far away as Long Beach Island.
Meanwhile, Plante said, numerous other wildfires were reported in the region — including a morning blaze in the Wharton State Forest and an afternoon blaze in the Mays Landing section of Hamilton Township that crews still had “their hands full with” as of 6:30 p.m. That fire had burned more than 50 acres at that time, he said.
“Obviously, first and foremost, there’s the wind, which is gusting from 35 mph to 40 mph. Ever try to get a fire in a fireplace going? To get it going you have to blow on it a little. Well, here you go. Mother Nature is blowing on it today,” Plante said to explain why the Forest Fire threat level was listed a “high” on Saturday. “And addition to the wind pushing the fires, the humidity is very low. This is causing the fuel — which are the pine needles and leafs on the ground — to dry out.”
And the strong winds knocked out power outages to more than 4,300 households in the region on Saturday afternoon, Atlantic City Electric spokeswoman Kennya Seeney said.
“Most of these outages are due to the wind blowing tree branches into the lines, creating a contact that causes a surge and power getting cut out to the line,” said Seeney, adding that the solution to many of these problems is as simple as flipping a switch.
“But with the wind,” she said, “it’s an ongoing thing that we have to deal with. We might restore power to someone’s house in one area, and then two hours later we could be back in that same area because a branch comes down.”
As of 9:15 p.m., there were 304 customers without power reported by Atlantic City Electric customers in Atlantic County, 465 in Cape May County, 505 in Cumberland County, one in Ocean County and more than 1,400 in Gloucester County, according to the utility's online outage map.
Contact Robert Spahr:
609-272-7283
