The weather for much of the next couple of days will be sunny and dry.

It's an ideal time to go out camping in of the many North Jersey state parks or forests where there's the likelihood for a campfire. Unfortunately, it also creates the conditions for a fire in a wooded area.

The New Jersey Forest Fire Service announced Friday on its Facebook page that there are fire restrictions for several counties, including Morris and Passaic.

The Stage 1 Fire Restrictions for the service's Division A coverage area are:

Fires directly on the ground are prohibited unless in a prepared fire ring.

A prepared fire ring must be constructed of steel, stone, brick, or concrete with a gravel or masonry base.

Fires on mineral soil which will not endanger the forest, such as in a gravel pit, may be permitted at the discretion of the Forest Fire warden issuing the permit.

Other counties under the restriction are Hunterdon, Somerset, Sussex and Warren.

One of the factors of these restrictions is the service has rated the fire danger in the coverage area as "high" due to two indicators: the dryness of the ground and possibility of materials igniting a fire.

There are five state parks in Morris County including the 9,000-acre Allamuchy Mountain State Park, which is also located in Warren and Sussex counties.

Passaic County has three state parks, one of which is 35,524-acre Wawayanda State Park, also located in Sussex County. The county also has three state forests including Ramapo Mountain State Forest, also in Bergen County.

From January 1 to September 22, there were 549 fires reported across the state that burned a total of 13,874 acres, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.

Most of the acreage that went up in flames came from one that struck Penn State Forest in Burlington County this past spring and engulfed approximately 11,600 acres.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com

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