The Warren Grove Gunnery Range is a military bomb practice range. Military planes, including A-10s and F-16s from East Coast Air National Guard units, use the area for practice bombing and strafing. Warren Grove is also home to the Pygmy Pine Plains, populated by dwarf pitch pine and blackjack oaks.[4]
Incidents
In May 2007, flares dropped from an F-16 belonging to the 177th Fighter Wing set off a large wildfire that consumed more than 18,000 acres (73 km2) of the Pinelands and forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents.[5]
In January 2002, an aircraft practicing at Warren Grove crashed near the Garden State Parkway spewing flames and molten metal across the busy road.
In June 2001, a 1,600 acres (6 km2) forest fire occurred when an Air National Guard plane dropped a 25-pound practice bomb at the range.
In April 1999, nearly 12,000 acres (49 km2) of forest, wetlands, cedar swamp and cranberry bogs burned after a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II from the 111th Fighter Wing plane dropped a "dummy" bomb more than a mile from its target.
^"Military must fix communication", Courier-Post, July 28, 2007. Accessed August 11, 2007. "On May 15, a fighter pilot mistakenly released flares while on a training mission over the Warren Grove Gunnery Range in Ocean County. At the time, the ground below was extremely dry. The flares hitting the ground touched off a fire that burned 18,000 acres (73 km2) of Pinelands, injured two people, destroyed four homes and damaged 53 other homes."
^McFadden, Robert D.; and Hanley, Robert. "Warplane Strafes a School in New Jersey", The New York Times, November 5, 2004. Accessed December 13, 2012. "The pilot was to have fired the half-second burst of shells well into the dive, at about 5,000 feet, the colonel said, but instead the cannon went off at an altitude of 7,000 feet, and at least eight of the bullets - non-explosive lead slugs more than 2 inches long - crashed through the roof of Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School, three miles south of the target range."