Residents evacuated because of fire on New York-New Jersey border

New York state issued the first voluntary evacuation for residents affected by the Jennings Creek wildfire Saturday night after gusty winds blew the flames northeast, breaching a line firefighters had put in place to contain the blaze.

The fire, which has swept through at least 5,000 acres in the past 10 days, warranted evacuations for two communities in Warwick, New York, a town about 4 miles from the New York-New Jersey border, according to Jeff Wernick, a spokesperson for New York state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

Officials asked residents in 35 homes along Greenwood Lake and another 130 homes in neighboring Wah-ta-Wah Park to leave the area as emergency personnel worked to control the fire, Wernick said.

It was unclear Sunday how many people had evacuated, or whether any had returned to their homes. Some who left are sheltering 5 miles north at Greenwood Lake Middle School, while others found shelter elsewhere, Wernick added.

The voluntary evacuation will remain in effect until at least Monday, and schools will be closed Monday in Greenwood Lake.

The region has received little to no rainfall since Sept. 29, sparking brush fires that have swept across parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and burned thousands of acres of bone-dry land. Each state has declared a burn ban that prohibits people from starting bonfires and burning refuse, tires or trash.

The conditions are part of a dry spell across the United States: As of Nov. 12, nearly half of the country, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, was experiencing a drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Conditions in the tristate area are expected to improve this week, Bill Goodman, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said. Jennings Creek and other parts of New York and New Jersey are expected to receive 2 inches of rainfall from early Wednesday morning through Thursday night.

The precipitation “would be welcome, but it will only be a little bit of a dent,” Goodman said. The area has received at least 7 to 8 inches of rain less than is normal at this time of year.

“We hope it will be enough to wet dry leaves and pine needles that fuel these fires,” he added. “But we’ll just have to see what happens and take it one storm at a time.”

New York City is expected to get the same amount of rain midweek after a weekslong dry spell, according to the National Weather Service forecast. City officials issued a drought warning earlier this month urging residents to conserve water.

From Nov. 1 through Nov. 14, the New York Fire Department responded to 271 brush fires, the most in a two-week period in the city’s modern history, Robert S. Tucker, the fire commissioner, said in a statement. Those included a blaze in Prospect Park in the Brooklyn borough and a fire in Inwood Hill Park in the Manhattan borough that sent plumes of smoke across the city.

The Fire Department on Sunday said it has created a new task force to change the way it responds to brush fires. It will include fire marshals, fire inspectors and tactical drone units, and will investigate what caused each blaze and streamline the way the agency collects brush fire data.

“The threat of fast-spreading brush fires fueled by dry vegetation and windy conditions have resulted in an historic increase of brush fires throughout New York City,” Tucker said in the statement.

He added that “putting protocols in place to keep our members safe while they are in the field, and working to identify the causes of these fires after they happen” would help the department target high-risk spots.

Containing the fire in Jennings Creek on Saturday required dumping nearly 22,000 gallons of water from overhead using helicopters from the New York Army National Guard and the New York State Police, Wernick said.

Fire personnel were able to control the spread, he said, but the fire continues to burn, mostly in Sterling Forest State Park.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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