Published: 5/16/07, 11:25 AM EDT
By WAYNE PARRY
(AP) - Firefighters in New Jersey kept an anxious eye on the weather Wednesday as they battled a massive wildfire that had consumed about 20 square miles of brush after a military jet dropped a flare on a bombing range.
With the dry conditions, strong wind gusts quickly fanned the blaze through the Warren Grove Gunnery Range about 25 miles north of Atlantic City.
No deaths or injuries had been attributed to the fire, but it forced the evacuation of about 2,500 homes along the border between Ocean and Burlington counties. Lt. Col. James Garcia, a spokesman for the New Jersey Air National Guard, said the fire was believed to have been started Tuesday afternoon with a flare dropped from an F-16 fighter jet.
The same range was involved when a National Guard jet accidentally strafed an elementary school with large-caliber rounds in 2004 during a training exercise.
Firefighters worked overnight to create fire breaks along the Garden State Parkway in effort to contain the blaze, and state police said they would close a portion of the toll road if visibility became dangerously low.
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