Brush fire starts in Manhattan’s Inwood Hill Park as Northeast drought worsens

Upper Manhattan caught fire yesterday as a brush fire ignited in Inwood Hill Park, following blazes in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and across the Hudson River in New Jersey in the past week, in what the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) has called an “unprecedented number of brush fires” for this time of year.

Fires blaze across the Northeast

The city fire force has responded to 229 brush fires in all five boroughs between October 29 and November 12. Majority of the fires are in the Bronx, then Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island.

Columbia University climate scientist Richard Seager told Newsweek in a phone interview on Thursday he isn’t surprised by the recent uptick in city fires, citing a lack of precipitation across the Northeast in recent weeks. However, Seager noted the dry spell is unexpected given recent regional trends showing increased rainfall in recent years.

Outside of the city, fires have ignited across the Northeast over the past few weeks, with over 450 in Massachusetts alone since October, according to Governor Maura Healey’s November 12 press release.

In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy declared a drought warning, writing that “the New Jersey Forest Fire Service has responded to 537 wildfires, a more than 1,300 percent increase in wildfires over the same period last year.” Earlier this week, much of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York were under red flag warnings, due to dry and windy conditions conducive to fires.

The Inwood Hill Park three-alarm fire, which is considered significant on a scale of 1 to 5, required around 145 firefighters to combat the “very, very large, extensive brush fire, approximately 400 by 400,” FDNY chief of fire operations Kevin Woods said in a press conference last night.

He noted that firefighters faced several topographical challenges including, having to pull water from the Harlem River and stretch the “hose lines approximately 150 feet or more up a hill to extinguish multiple fires,” calling it was a “very, very dangerous operation.”

In a shock to the city, fires have burned across the boroughs, notably in frequented family spaces including Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park, and just outside the city, with New Jersey’s Jennings Creek still ablaze after burning 2,283 acres in New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. As of Wednesday evening, the first was 50 percent contained.

The city has issued air quality alerts following increased smoke and air particulate pollution that are “unhealthy for sensitive groups.” At a press conference yesterday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams recommended individuals with respiratory issues to stay indoors, use air filters, and air conditioning.

New York state has implemented a statewide burn ban until November 30. This prohibits people from starting any outdoor fires including uncontained campfires. In addition, grilling has been banned in New York City Parks.

Northeast drought monitor: What are the current drought conditions?

According to the U.S. drought monitor, the city, and many neighboring counties including across state lines, are experiencing “severe drought.”

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection reported as of Wednesday, that September and October received more than 3 inches less rain than historical averages, at 1.36 and 0.87 inches respectively, and so far, there has only bee 0.21 inches of rain in November.

The department also reported that the reservoirs that feed the city’s water supply system are at 62 percent capacity, compared to 79.2 percent normally. Adams noted this in his press conference, saying, “We need rain. And we can’t get any clearer than that. Not only downstate, but up where our reservoirs are located.”

“Since late September, there’s been very little precipitation in the Northeast and that is really, really surprising,” Seager told Newsweek.

He explained that in the tri-state area, “for decades it’s been getting wetter here, and in particular its been getting wetter in the fall and in particular October. So these five, six weeks of dry conditions appear as a stunning drop in precipitation amongst what is overall a trend towards wetter conditions.”

He largely credited this drought to “random atmospheric dynamics,” that are resulting in a “sequence of unfortunate weather” fueling fires.

Regarding the trend towards a wetter climate, he said “Climate models predict that precipitation should be increasing in the Northeast as a result of human driven climate change and that is occurring primarily because as the Atlantic Ocean warms up that puts more moisture in the atmosphere above it. Then a storm system could pick that moisture up and bring it to the Northeast.”

He noted that the “wetting that has occurred here is way in excess of what models predict should have happened,” suggesting there might be other factors at play beyond human driven climate change.

Seager echoed New York City officials, emphasizing the importance of avoiding smoking or barbecuing in parks, warning that small ignitions can easily spark brush fires in the dry conditions and given the season, where dried leaves cover the floor.

Unlike in California, where wildfires are more common and forecasters can better predict dry or wet seasons based on tropical Pacific Ocean patterns, in the Northeast, “our range of predictability is limited to the one, one and a half weeks of weather predictions, and unfortunately it says it’s going to be dry,” he said.