N.J.’s warming weather prompts caution on wildfires
Monday April 8, 2013, 6:09 PM
BY JAMES M. O’NEILL
STAFF WRITER
The Record
With temperatures expected to climb over the next few days, state officials cautioned Monday about the increasing risk of wildfires as New Jersey enters the heart of wildfire season.
Firefighters battled a small brushfire Monday that charred a few acres of forest floor in Oakland, and other brushfires popped up around the state, including one in the Morris County community of Budd Lake. This year’s largest wildfire occurred last weekend, when 150 acres burned in a remote section of Wharton State Forest in Burlington County.
“This is the time of year when things get hairy for wildfires,” said Michael Gallagher, a research technician with the U.S. Forest Service who is conducting wildfire research in New Jersey’s Pinelands, where the state’s largest wildfires historically occur.
“Temperatures start to get warmer, there’s lower relative humidity and that helps dry out the fuels lying on the forest floor, such as leaf litter and dead twigs and branches,” said Gallagher, a graduate student at Rutgers University.
“That, combined with cabin fever, and you have more people outside, perhaps camping, or flicking a cigarette out their car window,” he said.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/Firefighters_battling_Oakland_brush_fire.html