a massive wildfire in Ocean County is still raging tonight after burning through more than 12,000 acres according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service which is continuing to make progress containing the blaze burning in both Ocean and Lacy townships a state of emergency is still in effect for the area but as of this afternoon evacuation orders were lifted for the roughly 5,000 residents who were asked to leave their homes and businesses Tuesday night state fire officials say the Jones Road fire is now 40% contained one commercial building was destroyed along with multiple vehicles and outuildings those are structures like garages and sheds a full damage assessment is underway and it's expected to be extensive as the wildfire will likely burn for a few days more than a dozen structures are still under threat along Route 532 one of several local roads that were affected by the wildfire forest fire officials say airfleets will continue with bucket drop operations throughout this evening but thankfully no one was injured given just how devastating this fire could have been raven Santana has the details there were 1300 homes that were threatened during the course of fighting this fire and this could very well end up being the largest wildfire in New Jersey in 20 years a state of emergency was declared early this morning after a wildfire ignited in the Pine Barons and rapidly intensified overnight the fastmoving Jones Road wildfire forced thousands to evacuate and led to the closure of a section of the Garden State Parkway we dispatched resources right off the bat they arrived on location the wildfire was about 10 to 20 acres upon arrival and um we had resources there quickly we dispatched aircraft and even with a big show of force to contain this fire uh it still grew grew to be a large wildfire so our initial attack efforts failed because of um extreme fire behavior dry droughty fuels spring fire season windy lower H which is relative humidity so we had difficulty containing it to our initial box box where we tried to keep it in to prevent it from spreading that initial box failed we went to bigger more substantial roads that failed we eventually went to the Garden State Parkway it uh grew out of our reach there and eventually burned to Route 9 and um became the fire that we see it is today this time last year um we were at 310 wildfires for a total of 315 acres burned this year for this same period we're at 662 wildfires with 16,572 acres burned a spokesperson for JCPNL reported that the intense fire initially knocked out power for 25,000 customers our crews have been out since early this morning surveying our lines checking our poles our wires our devices to see what can handle power what damage there is and we will begin the restoration process as those surveys are completed more than 5,000 residents either followed mandatory evacuation orders or chose to leave voluntarily south Regional High School Amanda Hawkins served as one of two emergency shelters set up overnight offering a safe haven to approximately 200 people inside evacuees had access to snacks drinks phone charging stations and CS for the night a significant number of those seeking shelter were senior citizens people started to come here and to the Manchester High School um shelter location at about 7 8:00 p.m um so we had this open until this morning it's still technically open but as you can see behind me our staff is starting to clean up um because everyone's been able to return home which is great i came back to the shelter around 7:00 a.m and um people were starting to learn that the evacuation orders had been lifted at that point and they were starting to go home as officials work to contain the fire and the smoke gradually clears they stress that they expect the fire to continue to burn for several days what you're seeing now is the smoke's disappearing which means that our our techniques are working you know there's going to be little pockets and therefore that's going to keep us from actually containing this at 100% but I think based on what I'm seeing here the consent uh the containment should start to rise up and uh definitely a good indication that the crews out there are making progress with this despite its scale the Ocean County fire resulted in the loss of just one commercial building thankfully no homes were affected and there were no reported injuries or fatalities the cause of the fire remains under investigation for NJ Spotlight News I'm Raven Santana