Drivers near Newark Liberty International Airport were met with heavy smoke Thursday afternoon after a brush fire broke out along Doremus Avenue.
A brush fire tore through 900 Doremus Avenue in Newark, sending a heavy plume of smoke rising over the area and causing an immediate scramble on the roadways. The Port Authority locked in a traffic reroute through Doremus Avenue shortly after 2:46 p.m., telling anyone moving in and out of the port to watch themselves out there.
Social media did what social media does—clips and photos spread fast, mostly from people in cars or nearby businesses trying to figure out where exactly the smoke was coming from. Consensus online pointed away from the airport itself and toward the industrial corridor hugging the waterfront. One Reddit user even reported the following video on the smoke coming from the Newark Airport area this afternoon:
Something’s on fire
by u/miata_dad in newjersey
By the latest reports, the fire is out.
What nobody has answered yet is how it started. The cause is still unknown, and officials haven’t said much beyond the initial traffic alert.
No injuries reported.
It’s a rough week for Newark Liberty. On Monday morning, controllers were forced to evacuate the main air traffic control tower after a burning smell and smoke spread through the facility. The ground stop that followed left hundreds of flights grounded and travelers stranded across the terminal—chaos before most people had finished their coffee.
Developing—we’ll update this as more comes in.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.