AP News, May 22nd, 2007
The National Guard range where a dropped military flare is believed to have started a wildfire should be shut down, Gov. Jon S. Corzine said Tuesday.
The fire charred more than 17,000 acres over six days before being declared fully contained Monday. Authorities think it started when a National Guard F-16 fighter on a training run over the Warren Grove Gunnery Range dropped a flare into dry brush.
Corzine said that he will listen to the arguments on either side, but that it's going to be a "hard sell" to convince him the range should stay open.
"I will be strongly in favor of its closing," Corzine said.
The Air Force has convened an accident investigation board to review the incident. There has been a history of problems at the range, including in November 2004, when an F-16 mistakenly strifed an elementary school when a pilot applied too much pressure on the trigger. The school was mostly empty and no one was injured. There also have been plane crashes on the range.
"We're kind of in the three-strikes-and-you're-out zone as far as I'm concerned," Corzine said.
Air Force Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Defense Department spokeswoman, declined to comment on Corzine's stance. But Maj. Gen. Glenn K. Rieth, the head of the National Guard in New Jersey, has described training at the range as "a vital function" for the nation.
All training at Warren Grove has been suspended until the current investigation is complete, officials said, and the military has promised to reimburse those who lost homes and property in the fire if federal investigations pinpoint the jet as the cause of the blaze.
In Georgia, the smell of burning wood hung over Atlanta as the wind blew in smoke from wildfires along the border with Florida. The haze lowered visibility in the Atlanta area to three to five miles, and people with respiratory problems were being urged to stay inside.
The wildfires have blackened more than 700 square miles of dried-out forest and swampland in drought-stricken southeastern Georgia and northern Florida. Commercial timber losses are estimated to be at least $30 million.
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Associated Press writer Debbie Newby in Atlanta contributed to this report.
