On Thursday, authorities in Jew Jersey announced that a man has been charged with arson in connection with the wildfires that have been burning since Tuesday. Nineteen-year-old Joseph Kling of Waretown, in Ocean Township, has been charged with Aggravated Arson and Arson, according to a statement released by the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
“The cause of the fire was determined to be incendiary by an improperly extinguished bonfire,” the statement reads. “Further investigation has revealed that Kling was the individual responsible for setting wooden pallets on fire – and then leaving the area without the fire being fully extinguished. Kling was taken into custody at Ocean Township (Waretown) Police Headquarters; he was thereafter transported to the Ocean County Jail, where he is presently lodged pending a detention hearing.”
The fire has burned close to 15,000 acres as of Thursday morning in the New Jersey Townships of Waretown and Lacey, destroying one commercial building so far and forcing several road closures. The fires have prompted the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to issue an Air Quality Health Advisory for New York City, Rockland, and Westchester Counties, Nassau and Suffolk Counties in Long Island. At 1:33 PM, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service issued a statement on X that the fire is 50% contained.
The U.S. National Parks Service recommends extinguishing a bonfire with “plenty of water,” and not to leave or go to sleep if coals are still too hot to touch. Even lighter colored coals retain heat for many hours after flames have stopped and, according to the NPS, “can flare up if the wind starts gusting.”
This latest fire follows one in Long Island in March, which burned over 600 acres from Central Moriches to Westhampton before it was contained. Blazes also broke out that same month across the Carolinas an Georgia due to dry conditions, burning thousands of acres.
