Fire crews battled small wildfires across the Northeast U.S. on Monday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee over the weekend and postponed Veterans Day plans.
A quarter-inch of rain fell overnight from Sunday into Monday in a forest area straddling the border between the two states, giving a slight respite to firefighters.
The fire is one of several wildfires burning on the East Coast amid a lack of rainfall since September. An employee of the New York State Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation Department who was assisting firefighting crews died Saturday when he was hit by a falling tree.
The East Coast fires were burning as much larger wildfires raged in California.
On the New Jersey and New York border, crews worked to contain the 4.7-square-mile fire dubbed the Jennings Creek Wildfire, although no evacuations had been ordered, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service.
Officials said the overnight rainfall was far less than what was needed to extinguish numerous brush fires that have broken out around New Jersey since the middle of last week. At least four other wildfires in central to northern New Jersey were mostly or completely contained as of Monday.
In order to find and fight the fires, crews are navigating a maze of country roads, lakes and steep hills amid dense forests. Trees there have dropped most of their leaves onto parched ground, masking a potential danger.
“Beneath the surface leaf litter that falls off the trees, that stuff is bone dry,” Bryan Gallagher, a forest ranger with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said at a media briefing. “So right now you get a little bit of rain that puts that surface fire out. But if it’s in the duff it’s going to stay there. It’s going to smolder like a cigar until it gets dry enough and then that fire can pop up again.”
A firefighting helicopter capable of dropping 350 gallons (1,325 liters) at a time was being used to help combat the Jennings Creek fire. The National Guard deployed two Black Hawk helicopters for water drops, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
In West Milford, New Jersey, a Veterans Day ceremony was postponed to later in the month because of the firefighting effort, said Rudy Hass, the local Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. commander.
“Many of those personnel currently engaged with the fires are veterans themselves, and right now we need to keep them in our thoughts as they spend many hours, day and night, doing all they can in order protect our great communities in that area,” he posted online.
Meanwhile, New York State Police said they were investigating the death of Dariel Vasquez, the 18-year-old state parks employee killed Saturday while fighting a fire near New York state’s Greenwood Lake.
Health advisories were issued over the weekend for parts of New York, including New York City, and northeastern New Jersey due to unhealthy air quality produced by smoke from the fires, but conditions improved after the rainfall and changes in wind direction.
Dana Van Allen, of Ringwood, New Jersey, said she awoke early Saturday to what smelled like a burning campfire. She realized the fires were close enough to leave ashes on her deck.
“It was very stifling. We were very scared,” she recalled Monday.
The Northeast has been experiencing prolonged dry conditions. In New Jersey, the state Department of Environmental Protection is planning a hearing on Tuesday to review its water supply conditions. Before Sunday night, the last measurable rainfall in New Jersey occurred Sept. 28.
