‘Dante’s inferno’: Wildfires scorch New York amid historic drought

Brooklyn, New York – An incinerated, rusty microwave, the charred skeleton of a lawn chair, a pile of melted clothes, and singed scraps of the Holy Bible sat ominously on the forest floor, alongside a smattering of scorched pinecones.

Under a canopy of blackened tree trunks, in a small clearing in the northwest section of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Thursday, the apocalyptic aftermath of a fire that engulfed a homeless encampment in the park’s woods was still on display. A fire truck slowly circled the perimeter of the park while a squirrel scampered amongst fallen autumn leaves and parched earth.

Nearly a week after the brush fire, 26-year-old Brooklyn media arts teacher Jake Catalanotto could be seen curiously combing the site of the fire – roughly the size of two football fields – documenting the destruction on his camera. The lifelong Brooklyn resident was unnerved by what he saw.

“There are burned-out husks of electronics and cans and spray cans, mattresses,” Catalanotto, 26, told Al Jazeera as he described the seared hellscape. “A little one of those things that you put over a fire to cook over it. Pots and pans.”

Please use caution in accessing the park. Open fires + smoking are prohibited in the park, and any fires should be reported immediately to 911. Prospect Park Alliance + @nycparks are assessing damage in the area impacted by the fire + will share with the community ways to help. pic.twitter.com/37B3ufK27y

— Prospect Park (@prospect_park) November 9, 2024

‘Praying for rain’

October was the driest month on record in New York City, according to city officials – and between October 29 and November 12, a record-breaking 229 brush fires broke out across the city’s five boroughs. Extraordinarily dry conditions – caused by one of the longest droughts in history – have turned much of the sprawling city’s parks and the state’s forested areas into a huge tinderbox, putting communities, politicians, and fire crews on alert.

On Wednesday, a two-alarm brush fire in the north Manhattan neighbourhood of Inwood Hill Park caused smoke plumes to envelope the George Washington Bridge. A day earlier, Long Island volunteer firefighter Jonathan Quiles was arrested on arson charges for allegedly intentionally starting a brush fire in Medford, New York. Upstate, along Greenwood Lake, which borders both New York and New Jersey, a 5,000-acre blaze killed a parks worker, threatened the evacuation of multiple homes, displaced wildlife, obliterated air quality, and stirred widespread panic.

In response to the spate of fires, officials have mandated a statewide burn ban until November 30.

“Now is not the right time to be burning outdoors, and I urge everyone to heed our warnings as we continue to take the necessary precautions to keep all New Yorkers safe,” Governor Kathy Hochul said of statewide precautions.

New York City has also banned outdoor grilling across the Big Apple amid the bone-dry conditions.

“We’re praying for rain,” embattled Mayor Eric Adams told reporters huddled at the site of the brush fire last Friday. “We really need rain with all of these leaves, and dry ground, and trees.”

‘There will never be another you’

No one was injured in the Brooklyn blaze. Officials, who have been tight-lipped, are still probing the fire’s cause.

More than 100 city firefighters had descended on Prospect Park to combat the fire, which tore through a hectare (two acres) of the park’s Nethermead meadow area. Steep terrain and unusually windy conditions initially hampered the “labour-intensive” efforts of firefighters, officials on-scene said. Viral images of the city park fire shortly after it erupted showed enormous clouds of smoke rising above a tree line illuminated by the orange, eerie glow of the fire’s flames. Soon after, smoke could be smelled for miles away.

“That initial image that was shared when the fire was first reported was horrifying,” Morgan Monaco, the president of the Prospect Park Alliance, told Al Jazeera.

Park officials said plant material covering the forest floor had been torched and multiple trees, which had been burned, would need to be removed in the coming weeks and months. The bare area was now at risk of soil erosion and potential flooding.

“We’ve got to really stabilise the area,” explained Monaco, who blamed the fire on the drought, as a result of climate change. “As early as next spring, we hope to be able to start planting. But it will take several planting seasons to replant a lot of the plant material that was lost.”

For now, park workers, Monaco said, are keeping a close eye on any activity that could set off new fires. She encouraged New Yorkers to do the same.

“We are encouraging New Yorkers to remain vigilant and to call 911 if they see anyone smoking in a park or any barbecues,” she said. “We need people to really understand the dire consequences of any fire, any smoking, any open flames in any park causing a threat like this.”

Monaco declined to comment on reports that vagrants living in the wooded homeless encampment were possibly to blame for the brush fire.

Days later, however, park-goers had returned to Prospect Park. Runners, cyclists, and stroller-pushing dads populated Prospect Park’s roads and trails on Thursday. Some new sights and smells greeted them. Barbecues in the park had since been covered with plastic rubbish bags in adherence with the city’s grill ban. A campfire odour still lingered.

Along a fence by the ridge where the fire burned, a number of New Yorkers had attached whimsical notes in solidarity praising both the park and the firefighters who fought the blaze.

“Prospect Park we will fight for better climate policy so generations ahead can know your beauty!” read one anonymous note.

“Dear park, who knew such peace and beauty was at such risk. There will never be another you.”

Fire ‘in your back yard’

For many New Yorkers, who are more accustomed to weathering hurricanes this time of year, the threat of wildfires was something novel.

“This is the last forest in Brooklyn and it’s being threatened by forest fires,” explained Catalanotto, the Brooklyn teacher, after exploring the Prospect Park burn site. “I didn’t expect that one. The climate crisis is nearby.”

Other Brooklynites echoed the sentiment.

“It was shocking and surprising,” Flatbush kitchen supervisor, Kat Teague, 43, also told Al Jazeera. “I never thought there would be a forest fire in Prospect Park – in the concrete jungle, right? It’s super crazy.”

The brush fire, which unfolded in the most populous borough in New York, where roughly 2.7 million people live, has left others feeling understandably “anxious” about the insidious effect of climate change.

“It’s strange because whenever there’s been any kind of smoke or warnings of fires before, it’s always been pretty far away from New York or in the metropolises,” said Noah, a 24-year-old student living in Brooklyn. “It feels like it’s getting closer, like climate change is more of a problem. It’s literally in your back yard.”

‘Mountains covered with fire’

Along the border of New York and New Jersey, the huge Jennings Creek wildfire, which has been burning for days, has inflicted a more sinister scar on the surrounding communities and their habitat.

The blaze has left at least one dead and residents on edge, many keeping go-bags and living under the threat of evacuation. Last Saturday, 18-year-old New York State Parks worker Dariel Velasquez lost his life “battling” the wildfire when a tree collapsed on him. No other deaths, serious injuries, or structure losses have been reported.

As of Thursday, the fire was 75 percent contained, according to the New Jersey Forest Service. Blackhawk and Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters, which are dumping thousands of litres of water on the smouldering territory, have slowed the fire’s spread.

At night time in recent days – when the sun sinks over Greenwood Lake – residents have been forced to absorb the most dramatic, even terrifying, views of the Jennings Creek wildfire and the true scale of its devastation. At the wildfire’s peak over the weekend, miles upon miles of brush and surrounding lake were illuminated by dancing flames.

“It was so red, the mountains covered with fire,” Randal Rodriguez, 39, the owner of lakeside hotdog diner, Paul’s Place, told Al Jazeera. “I was in shock – in my life I’ve never seen something like that.”

Rodriguez, who said the wildfires had also burned up business at his diner in recent days, admitted that he has had trouble adjusting to the constantly smoky conditions.

“There’s been a lot of smoke for a few days already,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a little hard to breathe. You feel like you can’t breathe. Really strong smoke. If you stay for a few minutes it will affect you, your eyes, your nose.”

Medical experts caution that wildfire smoke, which contains several pollutants, including particulate matter and carbon monoxide, can have a range of both short- and long-term effects on one’s health and respiratory system, including nose and throat irritation, wheezing, coughing, and trouble breathing. It can also exacerbate pre-existing medical or respiratory conditions such as asthma and COPD.

Greenwood Lake resident, Dave Kozuha, 44, who lives a few kilometres from the wildfire, likened it to “Dante’s Inferno”.

“Greenwood Lake is nestled between mountains on either side of the lake and the one whole ridge was just ablaze, it was literally just fire leaping across the top, the very length of the ridge was all lit,” Kozuha told Al Jazeera. “It was unreal to see something like that.”

Kozuha, who operates a local coffee roastery, said he knew multiple people who had voluntarily evacuated their homes. The lake’s surrounding communities, he said, were living in constant fear of evacuation or worse, potential displacement, if the fire encroached on their homes.

“Right now it’s just plumes of smoke going up,” Kozuha added. “If the winds change, it could come this way. It’s a danger, no doubt about that.”

Kozuha said he has been trying to remain calm and claimed he has not yet lost any sleep over the days-long wildfire – there was no time anyway, he noted. The local Java purveyor’s company, Greenwood Lake Roasters Craft Coffee, has been caffeinating the firefighters battling the blaze around the clock with free coffee.

“We’re doing everything we can to contain this threat to our community,” Kozuha said. “[We’re] trying to be strong but [we] feel the pain of the loss of life and potential harm. Fire is a powerful powerful force – and we have to stand strong against it. Together we’ll defeat it.”