As second suspect is charged, investigators detail how they tracked start of massive Jones Road Wildfire from a dirt bike crash

The crash of a dirt bike in the Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area helped investigators unravel details of where, and how, the 15,300-acre Jones Road Wildfire began, an assistant Ocean County prosecutor said in court Friday.

A detention hearing for suspect Joseph Kling, 19, of Waretown, Ocean County, however, was continued until Monday.

Meanwhile, prosecutors announced Friday that a second person, a 17-year-old, has been charged in connection with the wildfire that continues to burn in New Jersey’s Pinelands and is now mostly contained.

The youth has been charged with aggravated arson, arson, and hindering apprehension as a result of the fire ignited during a bonfire and left unattended and to spread. Authorities have not released the name of the youth who was arrested because he is a juvenile.

However, Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Lenzi laid out for Superior Court Judge Pamela Snyder details investigators uncovered that led them to charge Kling, who is being held in the Ocean County Jail.

Kling attends Ocean County Vocational Technical School and was expected to graduate from the diesel mechanic program in June. He also faces simple assault and other charges from an unrelated incident in January.

Lenzi said events began when Kling, driving his pickup truck on the evening of April 12, picked up others, identified during court only by their initials. They loaded a dirt bike into the truck.

The group drove to Sonny’s Recycling in Waretown, where they took 10 to 20 wooden pallets and put them in the truck. Surveillance video obtained from another business showed the truck driving through the area.

Kling drove the truck to Jones Road and into the heavily wooded Ocean County Natural Lands Trust’s Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area in Waretown.

There, the group unloaded the pallets. Lenzi said Kling lit two of the pallets ablaze after soaking them with gasoline in a pit. In all, four people were present.

As one person drove a dirt bike off into the woods, Kling tossed six more pallets onto the fire, Lenzi said.

However, the dirt bike rider crashed in the woods. When the remaining group learned of the accident, they left to check on him with the fire still burning.

After the group left, the flames from the pallets continued to burn, igniting woods in the Forked River Mountains Wilderness Area. Smoke from the fire was spotted the next morning, April 22, by an observer in the Cedar Bridge Fire Tower.

The fire crossed the Garden State Parkway, forcing officials to shut it down, and triggering the evacuation of 5,000 residents in Ocean and Lacey Townships. Route 9 had to be closed. A commercial building was destroyed in the fire, along with multiple other buildings and vehicles.

Lacey Township police interviewed the dirt bike rider in the hospital and he told of the pallets, pit, and fire. Officers used his cell phone to track the location of the crash. Using Google Maps, they plotted the area and determined the crash occurred 82 feet from the fire’s location.

The bike rider told investigators of a plan to say they saw Mexicans in the area at the time of the fire.

Investigators also say they have a Snapchat thread with another person who went to school with Kling. Text in the chat, Lenzi said, referred to Kling, saying “he caused the fire.” Other group chats also showed there were no Mexicans in the area, Lenzi said.

Kling was arrested April 23.

Lenzi told the judge that “the state is both shocked and disturbed by the actions of the defendant,” and asked for him to continue to be detained.

He said that, as the group left the fire, they could “see a red glow as they drove away.”

But Kling’s attorney, Joe Compitello, said Kling never sought to burn the woods, nor intended arson. He said Kling grew up in Ocean County, and lives with his parents, who moved to Waretown four years ago from Lakewood.

Kling was expected to work at his father’s company after graduation, Compitello said.

“This is someone who has deep roots in the community,” Compitello said, arguing that Kling is not a flight risk.

Snyder continued the hearing until Monday when Compitello is expected to submit a form requesting pretrial intervention that could include alternatives to incarceration.