Fire-Rescue News- Hamilton Township forest fire deemed suspicious, police say
Area firefighters on Sunday tackled several woods blazes, at least one of which is being investigated as a potential arson.
Hamilton Township police said a forest fire that burned about 80 acres Saturday night appears to be suspicious.
Police received a report of a fire off Old Egg Harbor Road in Mays Landing at......Continue Reading
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4:08 p.m. Saturday. The fire, fueled in part by the day's strong winds, did not damage any houses or other structures, police said.
Any witnesses are asked to call township detectives Frank Schalek and Mike Robison at 609-625-2700.
By Sunday morning, fire crews were mopping up after the Mays Landing blaze and other wildfires that burned throughout the region this weekend.
Ken Badger, a section fire warden from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, said a 30-acre fire in Estell Manor was contained by 7 p.m. Saturday and officially under control by 8 a.m. Sunday.
"The way this wind is, we have to really pump on everything because we don't want the hot embers flaring up," Badger said Sunday morning. "We had to have people at them all night long."
He said crews were working to put out dead trees that were still burning as well as the turf, the top few inches of ground, that had caught fire.
In addition to the larger blaze off Old Egg Harbor Road, Badger said fire crews put out a smaller, quarter-acre fire off Route 40. Another fire that burned a 50-acre section of Mays Landing appeared to be out Sunday morning, he said.
Meanwhile, firefighters have fully contained a wind-swept brush fire that burned nearly 500 acres in Burlington County this weekend.
The fire in Pemberton, which started about 1 p.m. Saturday, was still smoldering Sunday night. High winds and low humidity and produced thick smoke and fueled the blaze that forced the closing of some major area roadways.
Fire officials say the Pemberton blaze probably will not be fully extinguished for a few days. And while it is believed that an abandoned campfire sparked the fire, the investigation is continuing. The fire briefly threatened about 50 nearby homes Saturday, but there were no evacuations. No injuries were reported.
Atlantic City Electric reported scattered outages Sunday evening. In some areas, fewer than five customers were affected, while in others, such as Pleasantville, several hundred customers were affected, the utility's online outage map showed.
The Associated Press and staff writers Rob Spahr, Derek Harper and Eric Scott Campbell contributed to this report.
