Cnn
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The weather conditions are improving on Wednesday while firefighters continue to fight a forest fire still growing which has burned more than 12,000 acres in the south of New Jersey since he ignited Tuesday, caused more than 3,000 evacuations and briefly closed part of the Garden State parkway.
The fire started in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife management area, in Ocean County on Tuesday morning and was contained 40% on Wednesday afternoon, said the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. The cause is the subject of an investigation.
Interim New Jersey Governor Tahesha Way said a state of emergency for Ocean County on Wednesday morning. “For the moment, we have no loss of life and no house has been injured,” said Way on X.
“We really avoided a major disaster,” said Shawn Latourette, commissioner of the New Jersey environment on Wednesday, praising the efforts of fire fighting teams. “We still have a lot of work to do to achieve complete confinement of forest fires,” he added.
The fire should grow even though firefighters are progressing on confinement. “It could very well end up being the largest fire in New Jersey forest in 20 years,” said Latourette.
Despite its large size, the fire destroyed a single commercial building in the County of Ocean and burnt down certain outbuildings and vehicles nearby, but no house was injured, according to Latourette.
The compulsory evacuation orders were in force on Tuesday for certain parts of the cantons of Lacey and Ocean and were canceled Wednesday morning while the conditions improved, said Donna Flynn, public director of the County of Ocean County, in CNN. About 5,000 people have evacuated to the region, according to the mayor of Lacey, Peter Curatolo.
The part of the Garden State Parkway, a main state artery, which was closed on Tuesday, reopened early Wednesday morning, according to county officials.
“Our plan is to bring people back home, reopened the roads and overthrow this smoke,” said Trevor Raynor, a fire director of the Forest division on Wednesday.
Certain power lines have been proactively disabled near the fire Tuesday evening at the request of the fire forest services, affecting around 25,000 customers, according to Jersey Central Power and Light. Electricity had returned to most houses and businesses before Wednesday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.
Thick and black clouds filled the sky on Tuesday, which prompted a public health opinion in the county as the air quality was getting worse. Some buildings seem to have already been burned while the firefighters work to protect the structures, the antennas of the Affiliate WPVI show of CNN.
The smoke was not too bad at first, Giana Nicholas told CNN Affiliate News 12 New Jersey, but it quickly degenerated and forced his family to evacuate.
“Finally, overnight, smoke flooded the streets,” she said.
The fire comes as New Jersey is under an official drought warning, with “well-inductable medium precipitation throughout winter,” the state said in a press release last month. About 7,000 acres of New Jersey forests are burned each year, Tuesday’s fire exceeding the annual average.
Although forest fires are not as common as in other regions of the country, the region is not unrelated to the phenomenon. The fire of Jennings Creek burned several thousand acres in New Jersey and New York in November, which caused strong responses from the two states.
Winds Tuesday afternoon constantly have a crisis between 15 and 25 MPH. The dry weather is expected for the rest of the week, but light winds from 5 to 10 MPH should help the firefighters to progress on confinement. The showers will arrive late Friday evening and will continue a large part of Saturday.
“We should have the fire in the weekend as long as we get the planned precipitation,” said Bill Donelly, head of the state forest service, at the press conference on Wednesday.
This story has been updated with additional information.
Christine Sever from CNN and Julianna Bragg contributed to this report.
