Fire crews on both US coasts battle wildfires

RINGWOOD, New Jersey — 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. Just over half a centimeter (1/4 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 burning on the East Coast amid a lack of much 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.

Firefighters continued making progress against a wildfire northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County that broke out Wednesday and quickly exploded in size due to dry, warm and gusty Santa Ana winds.

The Mountain Fire in Ventura County prompted thousands of residents to flee their homes and was 36% contained as of Monday. The fire's size remains about 83 square kilometers (around 32 square miles). The Mountain Fire has destroyed more than 170 structures, most of them homes, officials said. The cause is under investigation.

Across the country on the New Jersey and New York border, the 12.2 square-kilometer (4.7 square-mile) fire dubbed the Jennings Creek Wildfire was 10% contained as of midmorning Monday, and 25 structures were considered threatened, 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."

In some areas, narrow columns of white smoke could be seen creeping out of a lakeside tree canopy Monday afternoon.

With the smell of smoke permeating the air in some areas, residents negotiated a string of road closures, and even some firefighters struggled driving on winding roads with weak cellphone signals.

A firefighting helicopter capable of dropping 1,325 liters (350 gallons) at a time was being used to help combat the Jennings Creek fire.

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 had been 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.

In Massachusetts, one wildfire among several fueled by powerful wind gusts and dry leaves has burned around 400 acres (162 hectares) in the Lynn Woods Reservation, a municipal park extending across about 8.8 square kilometers (3.4 square miles) in the city some 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of Boston.

The Lynn Fire Department cited "a dry spell we have not seen during this time of year in many years."

"We believe we have the fire contained using the main fire roads. We will maintain a presence to ensure the fire doesn't spread further," Lynn Fire Chief Dan Sullivan said in a statement late Sunday.

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 on Sept. 28.