Down a long, sandy road in Wharton State Forest, New Jersey firefighters were busily setting fires from morning through afternoon. They shot streams of flames from gasoline-filled canisters into the brush that crackled and popped this week as clouds of gray smoke rose over Shamong Township, Burlington County.
By fighting fire with fire, they hope to avoid a bigger blaze like the one that burned across seven South Jersey counties in 1963, killing seven people and burning 180,000 acres of forest.
“Black Saturday,” as it was called, became a benchmark event that led to improved firefighting tactics combined with controlled burns to reduce leaves and pine needles that fuel massive blazes, state officials said. About 15,000 acres are targeted for burns each year, with nearly that many set ablaze this month alone.
At the same time, Trenton lawmakers are pushing measures, now in committee, to promote more such fires on state and private lands by limiting liability and creating a certification program for prescribed-burn managers and procedures for conducting the burns.
But the efforts come at a time when the state is increasingly vulnerable to another conflagration, say private fire and forestry experts.
From Philly.com: https://articles.philly.com/2014-03-27/news/48599578_1_wharton-state-forest-next-fire-prescribed-burn-managers-and-procedures