Danger In The Pines - A Forest Fire To Remember

by Patricia A. Miller

It all began with a column of thick black smoke, spotted by an alert fire warden in a tower in Lakewood.

Black smoke was a bad sign. It meant the fire was “burning very fast,“ said Steve Holmes, Assistant State Fire Warden for the state Forest Service that day.

“We knew we had a good fire,” Holmes said.

Last April 23 was the beginning of a long day and night for firefighters and many residents who lived in the Pinewald section of Berkeley Township.

The Class-5 fire destroyed more than 300 acres in Pinewald and led to the evacuations of residents who lived on Northern Boulevard and Maryland Avenue.

It spread rapidly, fanned by winds up to 40 miles an hour, low humidity and tinder-dry woods. Local and state firefighters spend much of the afternoon working on a “block” to contain the flames, and even did a controlled “burnout” near the Toms River Intermediate School South South on Pinewald Road.

New Jersey State Police forbid people from getting anywhere near the 307-acre fire, telling people: “The wind can switch at any minute.”

“Public safety is our first priority,” a state trooper told a reporter.

And it wasn’t the only fire to break out that day. A second blaze - later determined to be arson - broke out in the heavily wooded area of Pinewald-Keswick Road and Dover Road. The path of the fire can be traced today by the blackened, charred pines that line the roadway. The fire gobbled up roughly 150 acres before it was brought under control

Click here to see how Patch captured the devastation on video, showing the chaos that ensued as the blaze ripped through the township.

The Pinewald fires were a year ago this month. Thankfully, there’s little fire danger predicted for the next several days throughout the state, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service website.

The Forest Fire Service has rated the fire danger as low in the northern, central and southern areas of the state for today.

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service uses two indices to measure and monitor the dryness of forest fuels and the possibility of fire ignitions becoming wildfires. They are the National Fire Danger Rating System’s “Buildup Index” and the “Keetch-Byram Drought Index.”

Both indices are used for fire preparedness planning, which includes the following initiatives: campfire and burning restrictions, fire patrol assignments, staffing of fire lookout towers and readiness status for both observation and firefighting aircraft.

But sunny, windy days will soon be on the way again. And the residents of the pines need to stay vigilant.