A large oak tree is seen smashed through a home in Allendale, N.J., Thursday, May 17, 2007, after a storm with severe winds moved through the area Wednesday night. Officials say yesterday's driving rain helped douse the flames of a wildfire that charred 14,000 acres since Tuesday. The fire is 70 percent contained in a triangular area bordered by two county roads and the Garden State Parkway.
Police block traffic from going westbound on Route 72, towards a forest fire, in Stafford Township, N.J., as rain fell Wednesday, May 16, 2007. By 6 p.m., the fire had burned about 13,500 acres, or almost 20 square miles, according to Maris Gabliks, chief of the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
Firefighters in New Jersey kept an anxious eye on the weather Wednesday, May 16, 2007, as they battled a massive wildfire that consumed more than 20 square miles of brush and pine forest believed to have been started by a flare dropped by a military jet on a bombing range. The blaze sent walls of flames 80 to 100 feet high.
Part of a back porch is all that remains of a house that burned down due to a forest fire in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007. As of Wednesday morning, a forest fire had burned about 13,500 acres, or 20 square miles, of brush and pine forest in southern New Jersey. The flames forced the evacuation of about 2,500 homes in the area with 50 homes either damaged or destroyed.
The burned out interior of a vehicle is seen parked next to a house that was destroyed by a forest fire in a housing development in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007. The blaze sent walls of flames 80 to 100 feet high racing toward senior citizen communities, where elderly residents grabbed their pets and ran.
Trees blackened by a forest fire are seen in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007.
A fire truck rolls past two burned down homes in a housing development in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007. A spokesman for the New Jersey Air National Guard, said the fire was believed to have been started Tuesday afternoon by a flare dropped from an F-16 fighter jet.
Scorched ground is seen behind a house that burned in a forest fire in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007.
Family photos of an unidentified family sit among charred paper at a burned out house in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007.
Steps to a burned down house are all that remain in a housing development in Barnegat, N.J., Wednesday, May 16, 2007.
A New Jersey State Trooper gives direction to a group of trucks towing horse trailers on the Garden State Parkway as people evacuate the area as a wildfire burns near Stafford Township, N.J., Tuesday, May 15, 2007.