Fire Rescue News- Forest fires that burned 400 acres in Winslow Township now contained

Posted: Saturday, April 7, 2012 12:30 am | Updated: 9:47 am, Sat Apr 7, 2012.

By ROB SPAHR, Staff WriterpressofAtlanticCity.com 

“They’re really doing mop-up duty on those fires right now and within the next day or so they should be completely out,” said Ragonese, adding more than 70 firefighters were working on the two fires.

Ragonese said the fires, both discovered Friday morning, were in remote portions of the Winslow Wildlife Management Area, so no homes or other structures were damaged. There were also no injuries reported, he said.

“But at this time, we are considering these fires to be suspicious in nature. Because they were in such close proximity to each other, which is unusual without a real apparent cause,” said Ragonese, adding there were no lighting storms in the area when the fires would have started.

State Forest Fire Service investigators and k-9 units were out Saturday morning trying to determine a cause, he said.

The region is currently under a “very high” danger level warning for forest fires, which Ragonese said was not unusual for this time of year and the result of “very dry conditions and very low humidity.”

In an average spring, there are about 1,500 forest fires in the state, he said, and even during last year’s extremely wet spring there were about 750.

“It’s mostly nature’s way of dealing with itself, but we’re asking people to take extra precautions when they are in these areas so fires are not started unnecessarily,” Ragonese said.