By STEVE PRISAMENT
Staff Writer

ABSECON – Fire Chief Butch Stewart said that a marsh fire along Route 30 Tuesday, May 27 that filled the sky with black smoke was caused by a cigarette tossed into debris that had washed up in the flooding from a storm two weeks earlier.

Smoke from the late afternoon fire off the westbound lanes of the highway could be seen for miles, Stewart said. Rush hour traffic was blocked for a while.

According to Stewart, a discarded cigarette ignited plant material and other debris that was cleared from Route 30 after the flooding from the unusual May nor’easter that struck the area Monday, May 12, causing power outages, flooding and road closings throughout the area.

“It was a freak storm,” the chief said. “Bay garbage came up onto the roadway. The state came in with plows. They cleared off the roadway.”

The material sat out and dried in the sun, while the wind kept it from going back into the bays, he said.

“All it is is grass,” the chief said. “Somebody flicked a cigarette. Then with the wind, it started a fire some 30 feet from the road.”

He said it wasn’t difficult to extinguish, being that close to Route 30.

“But they were out there for a half-hour or 45 minutes,” Stewart said. “They had to turn it all over. As it was, it could only burn to the bay.”

He said it was lucky the fire was on the north side of the roadway.

“On the other side it could be a life hazard,” Stewart said. “There are motels and other structures.”

He said it could also have been a problem if the fire had been far from the road, where firefighters wouldn’t be able to get to it.

“As it was, Mother Nature took care of it,” he said. “She has strange ways, but most of the time she takes care of her own problems.”

The way the wind and the tides work, he said, nature seems to maintain a balance even with human intervention.

“Most of the time it’s mankind that makes things go wrong,” he said.

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