Thousands evacuated as New Jersey wildfire spreads

WASHINGTON: A wildfire raged across the northeastern US state of New Jersey on Wednesday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate in the latest in a series of such blazes to strike the United States this month.   

The fire spread through a nature reserve area in the southern part of the state overnight after being ignited when an F-16 jet fighter on a routine training mission dropped a flare on dry pinelands.   

The warplane had been practicing the use of a self-defense system in which flares are fired as decoys to mislead heat-seeking missiles, a spokesman for the New Jersey National Guard told the New York Times.   

Around 2,500 people had to be evacuated from their homes and as many as 13,500 acres of land were torched, a New Jersey fire official told a news conference.   

"We still have a lot of work to do with the fire. We need to get containment around the perimeter," he said.   

"This fire will not be out until mother nature puts it out with a really good rainstorm," he said, adding that firefighters had only about 10 percent of the fire contained by morning.   

Fires last week tore through California and Florida, forcing mass evacuations and burning hundreds of thousands of acres but causing no casualties.