New Online Tool Ranks Tick Bite Risk for 564 Towns Across New Jersey

TickZone launched as a free online tool. It gives daily tick risk scores for 564 communities across New Jersey. Updates come each morning.

The platform offers scores between 0 and 100 for each town, pulling from weather conditions, seasonal patterns, and disease rates in the area.

Nathan Burnett created the tool after his brother contracted Lyme disease. Scores use five factors: current weather, seasonal tick activity, forest and open cover, deer-tick disease rate, and which species live in the area.

“He was lucky. We caught it early and antibiotics cleared it, but a lot of families are not that lucky, and the difference almost always comes down to awareness. That stuck with me,” Burnett said, according to Patch. “The frustrating part is that tick risk is intensely local; it can change street to street and week to week, and yet most people have no way to know when it is spiking where they live.”

The launch comes after the CDC reported in April that tick-related emergency room visits reached their highest point in a decade. Each score gets labeled as Low (0-33), Moderate (34-66), or High (67 to 100).

Hunterdon County has the most serious risk in the state. The top ten highest scoring towns are all in that county. Each earned scores in the 90s.

Burnett, who grew up in the Northeast, said ticks had been “just part of life” until his brother got sick. He built the platform to help families avoid bites before they happen.

“I built TickZone to close that gap, a simple daily read on the risk in your own town, so people can take a few easy precautions before a bite instead of finding out the hard way,” he said. “If it helps one family catch something early the way mine did, it is worth it.”

The platform covers more than 12,000 towns across 26 states. Users can learn what species are common in their area. They can see what diseases those species may carry. Prevention tips are available.

The site also offers information about prevention services.

Atlantic County locations earning high risk scores include Weymouth Township, Mullica Township, Hamilton Township, Folsom Borough, and Estell Manor. Data was collected Thursday, July 9.

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