The Forest Fire
Service is administered by the Division of Parks and Forestry,
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The
Forest Fire Service is staffed with 85 full-time employees
and a large part-time force to provide wildland fire protection
and management, as well as perform a variety of related
functions.
The
Service is under the direction of the state firewarden
and a permanent staff with headquarters in Trenton.
The Forest Fire Service is responsible for protecting
life and property from wildfire within 3.15 million acres
of both private and public land statewide. The state is
divided administratively into three divisions which correspond
to portions of north, south and central New Jersey.
Each division is administered by a division forest firewarden
and the land is partitioned into sections of approximately
100,000 acres. A full-time forest firewarden is assigned
to each section. There are twenty nine sections statewide.
A section forest firewarden is responsible for all phases
of fire prevention, pre-suppression and fire suppression
within their assigned area.
Sections are further divided into districts for 15-20,000
acres. A district forest firewarden is appointed as the
local person responsible for recruiting and training fire
crews and issuing burning permits. There are 269 district
forest firewardens statewide and more than 2,000 trained
crewmen employed on an hourly basis as needed.
