New Jersey’s wildfire season is underway. Here’s what you need to know

This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.

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Mid-March brings longer days, warmer temperatures, migrating birds and wildfire season to New Jersey. While typically limited to spring and fall, climate change is raising risks and lengthening the wildfire season in the state.

“With the exception of this year because we had so much snow on the ground we find ourselves having fires all year round,” said Bill Donnelly, state fire warden in chief of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.

Donnelly said the state has already had a few fires, and conditions are in place for more, including low humidity and winds from the south.

“The fuels are prime,” Donnelly said. “They’re all the ingredients necessary to have fires burn a little faster, a little hotter and a little more unpredictably.”

New Jersey’s wildfire season, which runs from mid-March to mid-May, occurs in some of the most fire-prone forests in the country, similar to the high-risk areas of California and Oregon’s chaparral shrublands, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Last year, the state experienced one of the worst fires in more than a decade. The Jones Road fire in southern Ocean County’s Pine Barrens took two weeks to bring under control, burning 15,300 acres.

New Jersey gets its first wildfire watchtower in 78 years

One of the keys to fighting wildfires is the state’s network of 21 fire towers, most of which were built in the 1920s and 1930s and are staffed throughout the fire season. A new $2 million 133-foot tower made of galvanized steel in Jackson Township, Ocean County, opened this week, funded through the state’s corporate business tax fund.

“Fire towers truly are the key to our success in most cases,” Donnelly said. “We pride ourselves on early detection and rapid response, and the early detection comes from the fire towers.”

Unlike the current structures, the new tower, dubbed Veterans Fire Tower in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, includes a catwalk and heating and air conditioning.

“Better working conditions,” Donnelly said.