Air Force Paid $2.6M of Forest Fire Claims

March 26, 2008

The Air Force has paid out $2.6 million in claims for damage from last year’s Pinelands forest fire that burned 17,000 acres in New Jersey.

The May blaze was touched off by an F-16 on a training mission that dropped a flare from too low an altitude into tinder-dry brush at the Warren Grove Gunnery Range.

The Air Force is still reviewing 100 claims related to the fire.

All told, $203 million worth of claims were filed. Most of that — nearly $198 million — is a single claim from a sand mining company that claims its operations were harmed by the blaze.

Source: The Press of Atlantic City.