The fire in the Pine Barrens led to the evacuation of 3,000 residents and the shutdown of a stretch of the Garden State Parkway.
By Ed Shanahan and Tracey Tully, The New York Times
A fast-moving wildfire in the Pine Barrens section of southern New Jersey spread to 3,200 acres of the heavily forested area by the evening, prompting the shutdown of a 17-mile stretch of one of the state’s busiest highways, the authorities said.
The smoky blaze, in Ocean County, threatened at least 1,320 structures, forced the evacuation of 3,000 residents of Ocean and Lacey Townships and caused the Garden State Parkway to be shut down between exits 63 and 80, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said in a statement.
Embers from the fire, which began Tuesday morning, jumped over the parkway at about 6 p.m., sparking several small blazes near a defunct nuclear power plant known as Oyster Creek, according to state officials. The plant, owned by Holtec International, shut down in 2018 and is being decommissioned.
Patrick O’Brien, a Holtec spokesman, said the fires closest to the facility had been “completely and safely extinguished.”
Even if a blaze were to reach an area where spent nuclear material is stored in secure casks, it poses no risk, according to Mr. O’Brien and Shawn M. LaTourette, commissioner of the State Department of Environmental Protection.
All the buildings at the Oyster Creek site are “designed and constructed to withstand fires,” Mr. O’Brien said in a statement.
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