Blaze Is Treated Like a Wildfire in the Forest The flames were racing up the Boardwalk, leaping from the flat, tarred roof of one small business to the neighboring one faster than the growing platoon of firefighters could douse them. With the wind whipping along the shore, the firefighters knew they had to deal with the blaze as if it were a wildfire tearing through a forest. They decided to make a firebreak by gouging a hole in the wooden Boardwalk at DuPont Avenue, a block north of the border between Seaside Park, N.J., where the fire started after 2 p.m. on Thursday, and Seaside Heights, N.J., where it was headed. They commandeered construction equipment to rip out the planks and dig a trench. Later, they filled the gap with sand from the beach. For a few minutes, the plan looked as if it would work, said Thomas Boyd, the police chief of Seaside Heights. Then the flames jumped across the break and ignited the roof of the building that housed a 100-year-old carousel, and the race to get ahead of the fire was on again. Firefighters moved the heavy equipment a block north and smashed another hole in the Boardwalk at Lincoln Avenue. This time, they were wrecking a commercial artery that was not even six months old. Hurricane Sandy had ruined the entire Boardwalk in Seaside Heights - a square-mile of hardwood, said Bill Akers, the mayor there. The town had rushed to rebuild it by Memorial Day, in time for the summer tourist season, he said. By July, 95 percent of the shops, restaurants and entertainment businesses had reopened, Mr. Akers said. Still, he added glumly, "it was a subpar season, everybody was down." As the big machines chewed another gaping hole, Mr. Akers watched from farther up the Boardwalk, praying that the flames would not consume the rest of his town's "lifeblood." "That's why people come here, for the beach and the Boardwalk," he said. It's how we pay our bills. Squinting through the choking, black smoke, he could see that the second break appeared to be stopping the fire, confining it to the six blocks of beachfront that it had already claimed. "That was a very smart decision," Mr. Akers said. It saved the Boardwalk. Officials say the fire started at the south end of the Boardwalk in Seaside Park, but they are not sure what the cause was, said Bill Hibell, the emergency management coordinator for Seaside Heights. In all, he said, more than 400 firefighters had raced in from all over New Jersey. He said he had heard of just one firefighter who needed to be treated at a hospital for smoke inhalation. As he spoke, groups of firefighters were still aiming hoses at flames in several buildings. Six hours after the fire started, flames were shooting through the roof of 3 Brothers Pizza. It would take a while to put it out, Mr. Hibell said, but he was confident it had been contained below the second break, at Lincoln Avenue. Mr. Akers noted that the fire broke out one day before firefighters from all over the state would be heading to another shore town, Wildwood, for their annual gathering. He shook his head slowly as he considered the possibility of such a treacherous blaze just two days later. "If this thing happens on Saturday, I don't want to think about what would have happened," he said.