Fire crews battled small wildfires Monday in the northeastern United States, including one in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee over the weekend and forced the postponement of Veterans Day observances.
During the night from Sunday to Monday, 6 millimeters of rain fell in a forested area on both sides of the border between the two states, providing some relief to firefighters.
The fire is one of several burning on the East Coast amid a lack of significant rain since September. A New York State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation employee assisting fire crews died Saturday when a tree fell on him.
Flames burned along the coast while much larger wildfires raged in California.
Firefighters continued to make progress against a wildfire northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County, which started Wednesday and quickly grew in size due to hot, dry and gusty Santa Ana winds.
The so-called Mountain Fire in Ventura County caused thousands of residents to flee their homes, and by Monday it was 36% contained. The size of the fire remains about 83 square kilometers. It has destroyed more than 170 structures, most of them homes, officials said. The cause is under investigation.
In neighboring Nevada, authorities ordered the evacuation of hundreds of homes southwest of Reno and closed the main highway to Lake Tahoe after a wind-fueled fire broke out on Monday and spread rapidly through vegetation. of the mountain.
About 3,000 people were ordered to evacuate, said Adam Mayberry, spokesman for the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District. It began to rain as local, state and federal crews arrived to fight the flames, he added.
On the other side of the country, on the New Jersey-New York border, crews were working to contain the 12.2-square-kilometer fire called the Jennings Creek Wildfire, although no evacuations had been ordered, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. .
Officials said the overnight rain was far less than what was required to extinguish numerous brush fires that have broken out in New Jersey since the middle of last week. At least four other wildfires in the central and northern part of the state were completely or mostly contained as of Monday.
To find and fight fires, teams make their way through a maze of country roads, lakes and steep hills amid dense forests. The trees there have dropped most of their leaves onto the parched ground, hiding a potential danger.
“Under the surface layer of leaves falling from the trees, that material is completely dry,” Bryan Gallagher, a forest ranger with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said at a news conference.
“So now you get a little rain that puts out that surface fire. But if it’s in the leaf litter layer it’s going to stay there. It’s going to burn slowly like a cigar until it dries out enough, and then that fire can resurface.” .
A fire helicopter capable of dropping 1,325 liters of water at a time was being used to help fight the Jennings Creek fire. The National Guard deployed two Black Hawk helicopters to drop water, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said.
In West Milford, New Jersey, a Veterans Day ceremony was postponed until later in the month because of firefighting efforts, said Rudy Hass, the local commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States.
“Meanwhile, New York State Police said they were investigating the death of Dariel Vasquez, the 18-year-old state parks employee who died Saturday while fighting a fire near Lake Greenwood in upstate New York.
Health warnings were issued over the weekend for parts of New York, including New York City, and northeastern New Jersey due to unhealthy air quality from smoke from the fires, but conditions improved after the rain and changes in wind direction.
Dana Van Allen, of Ringwood, New Jersey, said she woke up early Saturday to the smell of a campfire. He realized that the fires were close, to the point that there were ashes on his terrace.
“It was very suffocating. We were very scared,” he recalled Monday.
In Massachusetts, one of several wildfires fueled by powerful gusts of wind and dead leaves has burned about 162 hectares in the Lynn Woods Preserve, a municipal park covering about 3.5 square miles in the city, about 10 miles north of Boston.
The Lynn Fire Department indicated that there is “a drought that we have not seen during this time of year in many years.”
“We believe we have the fire contained using major fire roads. We will maintain a presence to ensure the fire does not spread further,” Lynn Fire Chief Dan Sullivan said in a statement Sunday night.
The northeastern United States has been experiencing prolonged dry conditions. In New Jersey, the state Department of Environmental Protection plans to hold a hearing Tuesday to review its water supply conditions. Before Sunday night, the last measurable rain in New Jersey fell on September 28.
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