After Snowy Winter Delays Prevention, New Jersey Faces Rising Wildfire Risk

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service this month announced an elevated risk for fire spread across Delaware and parts of New Jersey. Conditions aligned—humidity dropped, temperatures rose into the 80s and southwest winds were gusting up to 30 miles per hour, elevating fire risk across the region.

These conditions, the service said in a statement, “support the rapid spread of any fires that ignite, which could quickly become difficult to control.”

In Belleville Township, five miles north of Newark along the Passaic River, similar conditions contributed to a 14-alarm fire on May 3 that burned for days. The relative humidity was extremely low at 19 percent that night. Strong winds of 20 miles per hour pushed an industrial fire from a warehouse where it started to multiple buildings, prompting school closures and evacuations, leaving thick, hazardous smoke in its wake.

New Jersey is also back in the heat of its wildfire season, which ranges from March to May. The wildfire picture is more complicated than last year’s, when New Jersey had one of its worst outbreaks on record. Over 10,000 towering pitch pines were charred in a rampant wildfire that scorched 15,300 acres last April. 

This season has been mild thus far with fewer acres burned than usual, but the New Jersey Forest Fire Service has had limited opportunities to use the state’s primary prevention tool: prescribed burning.

Prescribed burns are planned fires that officials use to clear “fuel loads” of vegetation that often act like kindling when a fire ignites. Ridding parts of the forest of their dead leaves, twigs and other brush can stop fires from spreading and recycle nutrients back into the ecosystem. 

The state has used prescribed burns since 1928. In 2018, then-Gov. Phil Murphy signed New Jersey’s Prescribed Burning Act to promote it as a tool for wildfire mitigation.

Greg McLaughlin, administrator for New Jersey Forests and Natural Lands, said snow from the nor’easter in February was the largest challenge for the agency this year. Bitter cold nights and limited rain kept the snowpack in place for weeks after. As a result, teams haven’t been able to treat as much land as they would have liked, and burned only 35 percent of their 25,000-acre goal.

“This follows a prolonged drought in 2024 that constrained prescribed fire operations in 2025, when just 3,958 acres were treated, the lowest annual total in the last 25 years,” McLaughlin said.

Stephen Mason, an ecologist who studied the impact of fire on the Pine Barrens, said that the ecosystem actually evolved through fire. It remains a critical part of its health today.

“Prescribed fires, they’re apples to oranges when we’re comparing them to wildfires,” he said. “The state funds prescribed fires because if part of the Pine Barrens has not been burnt, either naturally from a wildfire or unnaturally from a prescribed fire, that leaf litter is going to build up.”

The result could be a high-intensity or severe fire. Intensity refers to the heat released during a fire, often measured by flame length or spread rate. Severity refers to the ecological damage, often measured by how much vegetation was lost or charred. By reducing the amount of fuel available, Mason says, prescribed burns make high intensity wildfires less likely to happen.

“Fires are not all good, but they’re not all bad,” he said. “They’re just necessary to maintain the Pine Barrens ecosystem as we know it.”

With prescribed burning finished for now, the Forest Fire Service is focused on responding to wildfires as they pop up across the state. This year, the agency is prepared. After a $3 million budget increase in fiscal year 2024, the Forest Fire Service purchased new equipment, air support and protective gear, and added 12 new full-time positions. An additional $1 million increase this year will fund more staff and equipment upgrades, McLaughlin said.

The forest service also got an upgrade on a new fire tower—the first new one in the state in 78 years. It just went into service this spring. The tower is at the Forest Resource Education Center in Jackson Township, Ocean County, nestled in the Pine Barrens. It stands 133 feet tall, with exposed metal stairways leading up to a small office topped with a red metal roof.

“The fire tower has already detected several wildfires and has coordinated deploying resources to those incidents,” McLaughlin said. “New Jersey’s fire towers are critically important to keep a watchful eye over New Jersey’s forests and communities.”

New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation. McLaughlin said about a quarter of the state’s homes are located in what’s called the wildland-urban interface, where the forest meets with homes and development. It’s a high-risk area, especially near the Pine Barrens, which frequently experience wildfires. After last year’s Jones Road fire, new equipment like the tower is meant to help monitor these vulnerable areas.

The snowy winter helped suppress wildfire activity, David Robinson, New Jersey State Climatologist, said. But under the right conditions, fires can still spread rapidly. New Jersey’s fire risk is increasingly shaped by volatile weather patterns from climate change.

“Every month is warming in New Jersey,” said Robinson. “Most of the warmest Aprils have occurred since the turn of the century. Preliminary numbers show April 2026 to be NJ’s 6th warmest since 1895.”

With fewer-than-normal acres burned, Robinson said it’s not a guarantee that things will be calm this year. The winter snowpack wasn’t heavily laden with moisture, and rainfall has been below normal statewide. The ground will be drier as the summer approaches.

“Mind you, 21 of the past 24 months have had below normal precipitation across New Jersey. Not a good situation as we enter summer,” Robinson said. “Fire danger can rise quickly, particularly in the Pinelands. A string of warm, low-humidity, precipitation-free days—add windy conditions too—and in just a handful of days danger can quickly rise.”

It’s hard for Mason to say if climate change is directly causing more fires in New Jersey. But he does know that climate change exacerbates extreme weather like high temperatures, freezing cold temperatures; very dry conditions, or very wet conditions—all of which influences fire behavior. Mason said that the real issue is not how plants and animals cope, but the speed at which they’re expected to adapt. 

​All of the fast and abrupt weather transitions, like going from blizzard to summer temperatures in a matter of days, cause physiological stress in species like the pitch pine. This stress weakens their defenses, making them susceptible to pathogens, invasive species and greater fire damage.

“It’s like death by a thousand cuts,” he said. “Normally, they could better defend themselves if they’re healthier, but climate change is really wearing them down over time.”