A wildfire in South Jersey, specifically in the Peaslee Wildlife Management Area in Vineland, Cumberland County, has burned through 1,000 acres as of late Saturday morning, April 19, 2025.
The blaze was spotted just before 12:30 p.m. Friday and initially burned 20 acres, quickly growing to 500 acres by Friday evening. By 10 p.m. Friday, it had reached 800 acres, and by 10 a.m. Saturday, it had expanded to 1,000 acres. The fire is currently about 50% contained, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
Key Details:
Location: Peaslee Wildlife Management Area, Vineland, Cumberland County, South Jersey.
Date: April 18-19, 2025.
Size: 1,000 acres.
Containment: Approximately 50%.
Impact: No structures have been impacted, and no evacuations have been ordered, but some roads have been closed.
Cause: The cause of the wildfire is under investigation.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month
HARRISBURG — A man charged with setting fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s mansion over the weekend had struggled with mental illness, twice being treated at a psychiatric hospital in recent years, his brother said Tuesday.
Court records and interviews with family members show Cody Balmer’s life unraveled dramatically in the years before authorities say the 38-year-old scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police, and set the Democratic governor’s mansion ablaze.
Dan Balmer, an electrical engineer who lives in the Harrisburg suburbs, told The Associated Press that he had given Cody Balmer a place to live a couple years ago. He was involved in getting his brother treatment at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute twice, saying Cody Balmer exhibited disturbing behavior.
“He’s had ups and downs his whole life with the bipolar,” Dan Balmer said. “He doesn’t believe he’s bipolar, so he doesn’t take his medicin
Cody Balmer, who is registered as an unaffiliated voter, had always been politically interested and considered himself “more of an independent than anything else,” his brother said, but that seemed to change during the 2024 election, when “he tried to convince everybody in the family” to vote for Donald Trump.
The night before the governor’s residence was attacked, Dan Balmer said, Cody Balmer flipped over a table containing a jigsaw puzzle at the home where he lived with their parents. Dan Balmer said he felt Cody was verbally abusive to their parents and urged his mother to stand up for herself.
“I remember specifically telling my mom, ‘You need to get mad at him because he’s taking advantage of you guys,'” he said.
Christie Balmer, Cody Balmer’s mother, said Monday that she had made calls in recent days about her son’s mental health, but “nobody would help.”
Dan Balmer said that his brother had a grudge against his wife because she pressed for Cody Balmer to get inpatient psychiatric care and that he claimed she was a witch who had cast a spell on him.
Fire caused significant damage and forced an evacuation
The attack is the latest act of political violence in the U.S. Balmer, of Harrisburg, was denied bail Monday as he faced charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, and arson. He did not enter a plea. He had told police he planned to beat Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he encountered him after breaking into the building, according to court documents.
The fire caused significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family, and guests, including other relatives, to evacuate the building early Sunday. The residence, built in 1968, did not have sprinklers, and the damage could be in the millions of dollars, Harrisburg Fire Chief Brian Enterline said.
Shapiro said he, his wife, their four children, two dogs, and another family had celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover on Saturday night in the room where the fire was started. They were awakened by state troopers pounding on their doors about 2 a.m. Sunday. They fled and firefighters extinguished the fire, officials said. No one was injured.
Balmer had walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during a police interview “admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit that did not expand on that point.
Balmer turned himself in at state police headquarters after confessing to his former partner and asking her to call police, the affidavit said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro thanks first responders who stopped the arson fire at governor’s residence
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month
For a certain breed of New Yorker, the best kind of exclusive access is not to the hottest new restaurant, the most celebrity-filled party or the hardest-to-book experience: It’s inside access to municipal infrastructure. I am this breed of New Yorker.
So when I recently learned Open House New York was distributing $10 tickets by lottery for a tour of Brooklyn’s Owls Head Wastewater Treatment Plant, I immediately entered. I’d previously toured the Newtown Creek Digester Eggs and enjoyed it greatly and was eager to see inside another wastewater plant.
Owls Head is one of 14 NYC Department of Environmental Protection wastewater resource recovery facilities treating the more than 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater New Yorkers flush down the drain daily. It’s been operating at the watery edge of Bay Ridge since 1952.
Owls Head alone serves close to 800,000 people (more than the population of Seattle), treating a large chunk of southwest Brooklyn’s wastewater through a biological and disinfection process that has it clean enough to be released into New York Harbor in about eight to 10 hours.
I did not know any of this when I entered the lottery. All I knew was that I wanted to see inside the sewage plant and learn more about how NYC works.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month
The decision, which stated federal agencies lacked authority to pause funding, follows the president’s executive order to freeze the money on his first day in office.
A federal judge Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to take “immediate steps” to reinstate already awarded funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, after the president broadly froze the disbursements on his first day in office.
Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island ordered the Departments of Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, to release awards previously withheld, after the ruling found the agencies lacked authority to freeze the funding.
The decision applies to all awardees nationwide, and will remain in effect until McElroy rules on the merits of the lawsuit. The agencies must update the court of the status of their compliance by 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday.
“Agencies do not have unlimited authority to further a President’s agenda, nor do they have unfettered power to hamstring in perpetuity two statutes passed by Congress during the previous administration,” McElroy wrote in her decision.
The decision is a blow to President Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle the Biden administration’s hallmark climate funding law. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, provides hundreds of billions of dollars in direct funding and loan financing. It also offers lucrative tax credits for manufacturers that meet domestic production requirements, incentivizing a host of companies to invest in domestic facilities over the past three years.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, also provides billions of dollars in clean energy funding.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month
The Trump administration has cancelled more than $1.3 million in federal emergency grants awarded to a Brooklyn food pantry to feed migrants, after advising the nonprofit it was suspected of violating U.S. law by serving food to “illegal aliens.”
The move leaves the Campaign Against Hunger — which each year serves 17 million meals to over 1.5 million New Yorkers, including thousands of new arrivals — in a lurch.
“To take that much money from any organization that does not have an endowment or a large budget is to take food out of the mouths of those that need it the most,” said Melony Samuels, the CEO and founder of Bedford-Stuyvesant nonprofit. “For those that need food, it’s tough. We are in a sad, tough time.”
The Campaign Against Hunger received a letter on April 1 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency with news that its grants under the Shelter and Services Program were terminated immediately.
Myriam Vargas picks up fresh produce at The Campaign Against Hunger food pantry in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, April 17, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The Shelter and Services Program provides funding to nonprofits and government entities to support “noncitizen migrants” after they are released from Department of Homeland Security custody and while they wait for rulings on immigration proceedings. Congress appropriated $650 million for the program in Fiscal Year 2024, including $512,000 for the Campaign Against Hunger and another $60 million to New York City’s budget office, to reimburse the city for costs related to sheltering new arrivals.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month
Nearly two months after a massive four-alarm fire broke out at the EMR Metal Recycling facility in Camden, New Jersey, the company has committed to investing millions of dollars back into the community.
“Let’s be clear, EMR is being held accountable,” Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen said.
Carstarphen detailed the new agreement between the city and EMR after the inferno raged out of control, sending toxins into the air. The mayor says EMR will now invest $6.7 million into the community, $4.5 million will be committed this year and $450,000 will be paid annually over the next five years.
“EMR will reimburse the city for losses fighting the fire, they will invest $3 million back into the waterfront south neighborhood,” Carstarphen said.
The fire broke out on Friday, Feb. 21, around 5 p.m. at the EMR scrap metal plant on the 1500 block of South 6th Street in South Camden, and burned for more than six hours before crews from nearly 20 departments brought the blaze under control. Smoke from the fire could be seen for miles in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
CBS News Philadelphia.
EMR says it will now reduce its footprint in the city by nine acres, limit materials and increase inspections at the site. It will also install an aerial fire suppression system that includes heat detection cameras to identify potential hot spots and develop a text notification system for residents.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month
