India, May 4 -- Two New Jersey teens who allegedly set the deadly Jones Road wildfire initially came up with a bizarre reason for how the blaze started, authorities have revealed. The fires burned more than 15,000 acres.

Joseph Kling, 19, and his co-defendant, 17, have been accused of lying to police when they were interviewed about the Ocean Count conflagration and their potential involvement in it. Investigators later found that the two deliberately set wooden pallets ablaze April 22, before walking away, the New York Post reported.

Kling and his accomplice, on being questioned, blamed the fire on Mexicans they claimed they saw in the woods just before the fire started, the Asbury Park Press reported. Both of them are now being held i...