Firefighters in New Jersey kept an anxious eye on the weather Wednesday as they battled a massive wildfire that had consumed more than 20 square miles of brush and pine forest after a military jet dropped a flare on a bombing range.
The blaze sent walls of flames 80 to 100 feet high racing toward senior citizen communities, where elderly residents grabbed their pets and ran.
“It was as close to hell on Earth as you’ll ever experience in your life,” said Bert Plante, a spokesman for the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. He spoke in a trailer park where two homes were incinerated and others were damaged.
The Warren Grove Gunnery Range, about 25 miles north of Atlantic City, was also involved in a 2004 incident when a National Guard jet accidentally strafed an elementary school during a training exercise.
Nice to see our defenders are consistent – if nothing else. Although I never would have identified New Jersey as potential collateral damage.
there was terrists in there!
Did they do it on purpose or did a soldier just toss a cigarette butt out a window?
I want to laugh. Really. Only I find it hard to laugh at when people lose their homes.
yes, I hope these unfortunate folks get treated better than the war vets
I can’t tell if this is just a cheap shot, or just an intellectually lazy comment. It was an accident. Puhleeze.
Uh…I hate to tell ol’ Bert, but living in New Jersey qualifies as **hell on Earth** in and of itself.
I always thought New Jersey WAS collateral damage!!! 🙂
They should have hit Atlantic City. So much for laser guided…
And all this time I thought New Joisey was the “Garden State.” (Actually, it is once you get away from NYC.)
The entrance standards have been drastically lowered. Training exercises are more like playing Crazy Taxi than ever before.
#5, is “Puhleeze” in the intellectual grammar guide these days?
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/articleid/7542
was funny till I read that some home got burned down…
then it was even funnier!!
Seriously tho, shoudnt the bombing runs be located FAR away from residential zones as possible?
#10 – The evidence that you’re right about that appears to be mounting. First an elementary school, now senior citizen communities. Now if we could only move them someplace closer to the white house….
At least this was a honest accident, unlike the insufferably moronic numbnuts who ignored the campfire ban and started the Ham Lake fire currently destroying the BWCAW (also known as one of the most beautiful places on Earth)
#10, it was said with the role of the eyes. It is in the urban dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=puhleeze
The pilot was using flares, one didn’t burn out before it hit the ground and it started a fire. No incompetence there. I thought the comment below the story was a bit weak and unfounded, thus the comment.
has anyone heard yet if the military will be picking up the tab for the cost of this fire?
The military picking up th tab? Ha! Don’t you mean the taxpayer picking up the tab?
#14 – had this discussion with 2 pilots over supper. One, ex-military, pointed out that pilots are supposed to know the safe altitude – for all circumstances – for the use of flares.
The dude who pushes the button is always responsible. There’s never any shortage of folks to prop up SNAFU’s with excuses, either.
#14, busdriver, you should see some of the fod that used to appear around neighborhoods located near Carswell AFB, Ft. Worth. Gee, wonder how that hole in the roof got there?? How did that $&@# crater appear in my yard?? etc.
You haven’t lived until you’ve had your jeep straffed heading for your favorite mountain hike spot in the desert south of Phoenix. Or had fighter jets buzz you on highway 85 heading down to Mexico through the Goldwater Military Firing Range.
Airforce jets used to regularly fall on top of houses on the far west side of Maricopa county in Arizona.
13. TheGlobalWarmer- “At least this was a honest accident, unlike the insufferably moronic numbnuts who ignored the campfire ban and started the Ham Lake fire currently destroying the BWCAW (also known as one of the most beautiful places on Earth)”
After reading many of your posts, I got the impression you would be in favor of this.
Digging deep for the anti-America stories these days, are we?
#20 – then you miss the point of many of my posts. Wilderness is a precious resource not to be wantonly destroyed. “Resource” however implies use by people.
Note to Sierra Club, etc – If you want to ban people from a wilderness area then by definition, you are removing all value from the area. That value may be nothing more than natural beauty but if no people are allowed in to see it, there is no value. Earth exists to serve mankind, not the other way around.
22. Wow, I dont think I missed the point of your posts, I thought they were quite clearly anti conservationists, but hey, I like the new attitude and mostly agree with your statement here.
Mark, hen you’re still missing some of the point. The big truck loaded with gear that I drive 900 miles in one day on a freeway to the mountains is just as important and being in the mountains.
Being in the wilderness in a crappy go-kart damn near negates the joy of being there at all. What you leave at the trailhead is import. A Truck/SUV is an essential part of the experience.
The “conservation” that involves sacrifice of standard of living is unnacceptable. The unfortunate truth is that carbon footprint is essentially a measure of how worthwhile your lifestyle is.
I can say this because you can have worthwhile vehicles and Mother Nature at the same time since the dire consequences of Global Warming (TM) as presented to us by Deranged Algore are simply overblown.
By your understanding of “conservation” I probably am anti-conservation. Sorry to dissapoint. 😉
#22 Earth exists to serve mankind, not the other way around.
Bullshit…
Earth exists entirely on its own, with or without a parasitic infection, and if we want to keep sucking off the tit of Mother Earth we’d better start learning to be stewards and stop mindlessly exploiting it.
Your attitude exists solely to serve your selfish desire to hedonistically use up every resource you can see without regard to the needs of others either today or in the future.
OK, I left out a word: without mankind, Earth has no reason to exist.
Just for fun (in a weird coincidence I just read this on another forum), in the Bible God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over the Earth and every living thing in it. By extension, it would be logical to assume that Satan’s instructions would be to let the Earth have dominion over Man. Hmmm, interesting……
OFTLO, the future will be just fine because Algore’s little fantasy won’t happen. Let’s bet on it and meet in 2100 to measure the ocean. Loser owes the winner a lifetime supply of beer.
These are the same brain surgeons that strafed a grade school with high caliber machine guns in a nearby neighborhood in NJ a couple of years back…so I don’t think ANY slack should be cut for them. I mean, aren’t flares countermeasures? Why the hell would they be wasting those in this kind of flight (especially given the heat, low humidity and wind conditions)?
Oh, and James Hill…if you actually comprehended anything you read, you’d know that the recurring theme on this blog is anti-STUPIDITY, not anti-America. It’s f*cktards like you that make it impossible to have any intelligent discourse about anything these days.
25. “Your attitude exists solely to serve your selfish desire to hedonistically use up every resource you can see without regard to the needs of others either today or in the future. ”
Thats what I’m talking about, I knew the Warmer hadnt had a change of heart.
26. Its nice to see someone who is so sure he KNOWS all the answers. It must be comforting to you. Its not to me.
#27…Osmodious…..actually, it’s calling someone you disagree with a f**ktard that stands in the way of intelligent debate. But, you already know that now don’t you?
#28 – I don’t have all the answers (if I did I wouldn’t be forced to work for a living 😉 ) I’m just more inclined to follow common sense than the ravings of a lunatic that tried to steal a presidential election.
I get a little worked up over this subject because I value my freedom. If there were ever a greater threat to freedom than Global Warming (TM) I’m sure I never heard of it.