New Jersey-New York wildfires continue to burn, fueled by dry, windy conditions

High winds and heavy fire are hampering firefighters trying to control a wildfire in a wooded area on the New York-New Jersey border, about 50 miles northwest on New York.

The Jennings Creek Fire, which straddles the border between Passaic County, New Jersey, and Orange County, New York, has ravaged approximately 2,023 acres of brush and thick forest near Lake Greenwood and killed one park work.

The fire, which started late last week, was 20% contained, the New Jersey Forest Fire Department said Tuesday on Facebook. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

Those conditions will create “chaos, chaos and a lot of uncertainty that we don’t need right now,” New York State Governor Kathy Hochul said at a news conference near the scene of the fire. She said about 15 fires were burning in her state during a particularly busy wildfire season.

New York State Police and National Guard helicopters doused the fire, and more than 375 firefighters established fire lines to protect homes and contain the fire. No structures were threatened Tuesday, but some residents of the rural area were evacuated, Ms. Hochul said.

The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning for parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Wind gusts are expected to reach 72 km per hour, with humidity around 20% in the region.

“The chances of more rain for next week are not,” said William Churchill, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Forecast Center in College Park, Maryland.

The situation was not expected to improve on Wednesday, he said, with the wind expected to decrease.

The area is experiencing one of the driest autumns on record. On Monday, it received its first measurable rain since mid-September, giving firefighters some relief, but it didn’t last long.

“The conditions we face are still very difficult,” said Ms. Hochul, who urged residents to avoid burning.

The fire left one person dead. Dariel Vasquez, 18, a New York state forest ranger, was killed by a falling tree while fighting the blaze on Saturday, authorities said.

In New Jersey, ten different fires have burned in different parts of the state over the past week, including one in Englewood Cliffs, across the Hudson in New York City, where the Haze was visible and the air smelled of smoke over the weekend.

Other fires in New Jersey were much smaller than the Jennings Creek fire and were largely contained, according to fire officials.

Northern New Jersey was reclassified as a “severe fire danger” on Tuesday. The southern third of the state was rated “high,” while the risk for central New Jersey was rated “very high,” the state Forest Service said on its website.

Fires are very common in the West, but fires on the East Coast are unusual. In California, firefighters have slowly gained ground on the Mountain Fire, which covers 8,350 hectares and burns 80 km northwest of Los Angeles. On Tuesday, it was 48%.