Spring may green New Jersey’s forests, but it also primes them for wildfires and state officials are watching to see if it flares into another intense season.

“We are anticipating another active fire year,” Greg McLaughlin, the state’s Administrator for Forests and Natural Lands, said Tuesday at a press briefing on the wildfire season.

New Jersey Forest Fire Service Chief William Donnelly said officials can’t predict how bad this wildfire season will be, but it typically peaks from mid-March through mid-May.

So far, it has been mild compared to 2025.

To date this year, 201 wildfires have been reported, burning through 154 acres, Donnelly said.

By this time in 2025, the state had already experienced 537 wildfires, including the massive Jones Road Wildfire that burned 15,000 acres in Ocean County and took 20 days to contain.

In all, 1,322 wildfires burned through 27,230 acres in 2025.

In a typical year, 1,100 wildfires will burn 5,000 acres.

Wildfire season is growing

Spring is prime time for fires because there are so few leaves on trees, which contain moisture that can slow the spread of a blaze. At the same time, low humidity and dry air masses tend to dominate with strong wind gusts.

This past winter was marked by snow cover that helped suppress fires, kept people inside. People are the number one cause of wildfires.

Donnelly said the length of wildfire season is increasing in the state.

He cited a 2025 analysis by the research nonprofit Climate Central found the number of annual wildfire weather days has increased over the past 50 years by 11 days in the northern part of New Jersey and five days in the southern.

“Despite the snow we had over the winter, the forest remains dry, and the risk is real,” Donnelly said. “Ultimately, Mother Nature will have the final say on what this spring fire season will hold.”

Donnelly noted that the forecast is calling for little or no rain for the next week or longer.

Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties were listed as in moderate drought by the U.S. Drought Monitor before Sunday’s rain. Most of the rest of the state was listed as abnormally dry. The U.S. Drought Monitor, a joint effort of the federal government and University of Nebraska-Lincoln, produces a map each Thursday.

Fire officials say the state’s first new fire tower in 78 years will help monitor hot spots in Ocean County. Veterans Tower in Jackson, Ocean County, is 133 feet tall and designed to act as a sentinel for 516,000 residents and 200,000 homes.

Pinelands at risk

New Jersey is more prone to wildfire than some other states because of its vast tracts of unbroken forest, such as in the 1.1 million-acre Pinelands regions.

Pinelands soils are acidic and forest debris accumulates without readily decomposing. The highly permeable acidic soils in the Pinelands also have a low capacity to hold water, often resulting in dry soil.

Highly flammable pitch pine thrive under those conditions. Together, the presence of highly flammable vegetation, accumulation of dry leaves and branches, and dry soil conditions make the area a tinder box.

Not only that, but pitch pines have adapted to the environment and depend on periodic wildfires to release seeds for reproduction.

New Jersey fire officials use controlled burns in winter to get rid of tinder that’s built up on the forest floor. They use handheld torches to set smaller fires to burn away fallen leaves, pine needles, fallen branches and other debris.

But they are limited at times because of weather, especially during droughts. Normally, they target 20,000 to 25,000 a year. After a long drought in 2024, fire crews were only able to complete about 4,000 acres, the lowest amount in 25 years.

This year, only about 8,600 acres have gotten controlled burns due to snow.

View Motion for Preliminary Injunction

Governor Mikie Sherrill and Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced today that New Jersey and the Township of Roxbury have requested that the U.S. District Court issue a preliminary injunction to prevent the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from converting a vacant industrial warehouse in Roxbury into a mass immigration detention facility.

Emergency relief is needed because DHS has indicated it plans to engage in construction activities in areas protected by a state-issued easement as early as late May.

If the project were to proceed, it would impose profound burdens on local infrastructure and public resources from a facility that would house up to 1,500 detainees and be staffed by 1,000 employees, in an area not zoned for large-scale human occupancy. DHS and ICE failed to comply with federal laws requiring them to consult with state and local government officials and fully assess a project’s impacts on the environment and local resources.

The motion for a preliminary injunction explains that a federal court already found a DHS decision to convert another analogous warehouse into an ICE detention facility in Maryland is likely unlawful. ICE spent $129 million to acquire the Roxbury warehouse – and should be prevented from expending even more taxpayer dollars on construction given that the lawsuit is likely to succeed on the merits.

“The Trump Administration has ignored State and local officials in pushing its ill-conceived plan forward because it knows the local impacts are indefensible, and this facility will not make the community safer,” said Governor Sherrill. “We are standing up for New Jerseyans in a bipartisan manner to ensure their drinking water, public safety, and pocketbooks are protected.”

“We need swift relief to ensure we can enforce the law and protect New Jerseyans. DHS cannot transform local neighborhoods into detention outposts without considering the impacts on local resources and consulting with the State and local governments,” said Attorney General Davenport. “The court needs to step in before the damage is done, not after a lengthy case renders it too late.”

The lawsuit filed March 20 seeks declaratory and injunctive relief under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Intergovernmental Cooperation Act (ICA), and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

DHS’s decision to purchase, convert, and operate a detention facility in this warehouse is unlawful for several reasons. As alleged in the complaint:

·    The site is currently a vacant warehouse on Route 46 that consists largely of a single large room with concrete floors and only four toilets.

·    The property lacks adequate water or sewage access to accommodate up to 1,500 detainees and 1,000 ICE staff.

·    Converting the warehouse into a detention center would multiply the water demands and wastewater output by more than 15 times, posing a serious risk of sewage overflows into nearby land, streets, and waterways – including Lake Musconetcong, which is 1,000 feet away and downhill from the warehouse, and Lake Hopatcong, the largest freshwater lake in New Jersey.

·    An exponential increase in water demand poses a substantial risk of reducing water pressure and reliability for residents, impairing flows needed for fighting fires, depleting groundwater, and diminishing nearby wells.

The warehouse is located near the Route 46 interchange with Interstate 80, an already dangerous section of road that has been the site of dozens of crashes, including three with fatalities, since 2019. It is expected that about 1,000 staff will work at the warehouse following its conversion, adding hundreds of new vehicles to nearby roads during rush hour.