A fast-growing wildfire burning in New Jersey's Pinelands near its Atlantic Ocean beach towns is threatening to become the largest in the state in nearly 20 years, officials say.

Aerial video released showed the wildfire raging on with smoke rising into the sky in Ocean County, New Jersey.

The Jones Road Wildfire had spread to 13,250 acres on Wednesday night and was 50 per cent contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said in a statement.

The blaze could become the largest in New Jersey in about 20 years, said Shawn LaTourette, the state's commissioner of environmental protection, at a press conference. A fire in May 2007 in the same area consumed 17,000 acres.

A New Jersey teenager has been charged with arson in connection with Jones Road Wildfire in the Pinelands region.

The Jones Road Wildfire, which started on Tuesday (April 22) morning in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area in Ocean County, was caused by an improperly extinguished bonfire, the Ocean County prosecutor's office said in a statement.