Drought grabs the US northeast, NYC arouses the fear of the fallfield fires

Waterways and wells run dry in parts of New England and Trees in New York, already shed their leaves as a late-summer drought the US northeast, increasing the risk of wildfires. More than 80% of the region is now abnormally dry or in drought, according to a US monitoring service, compared to just 11% this time last September. Some parts of the northeast went without significant rain for weeks – similar to conditions less than a year ago that led to a historical outbreak of brushes that scorched New York and nearby areas. In the state of New York, environmental officers have requested consumers to voluntarily cut water use as current flow drops and groundwater levels are drying up. Increased wildfire risk has introduced throughout New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, experiencing the first drought in the country since the record keeping began in 2000. “This spring was in some of these areas in early summer, which really made the vegetation thrive,” said Samantha Borisoff, a climatologist at Cornell University. But while the plants dry out – and drought stress causes trees to drop their leaves early weeks – the stock still grows potential fuel for fire. The drought is linked to sparse summer rain, which has been under normal for weeks. Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts, is often hit or missed in the summer months. Thunderstorms can cause severe rain showers and localized floods in some areas, while the next neighborhood remains mostly dry. That variability – with exceptionally hot temperatures and a lack of moisture from tropical storms moving abroad across the Atlantic – has heated some communities for rain. In densely populated areas, the risk of fire is even greater. This includes New York City, which has only seen sporadic storms in the last weeks of summer. According to the National Weather Service, Manhattan Central Park received less than half of its average rainfall for August. When we look back further, the summer rains in the park come in five inches below the average seasonal total. This is causing increasing concerns leading to the false season, says Kevin Woods, fire chief of fire department for the New York fire department. In 2024, New York experienced one of its driest fall on record, with a record number of brush fires matching. Crews responded to 229 fires in a period of two weeks from the end of October to November, Woods said, firefighters exhausted and made the department’s resources thin. “These are the same units that respond to structural fires, gas leaks, emergencies – whatever it may be,” Woods said. Intense brush fires broke out deep into the city parks, including Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Inwood Hill Park in Bo -Manhattan. “Our biggest challenge was water supply, because there are not too many fire hydrants in the middle of a park.” To prepare for this fall, Woods said the department has invested in miles of lightweight forestry hose, which is easier for firefighters to pull by hand to remote areas. They also strengthened the training on ‘water relay’, or the use of extra pumps to push water over longer distances from the source. During the end of the year, predictors predicted that drought is likely to facilitate in New York, while holding the grip on large parts of New England. Especially dropping can bring drenching rain, but rain showers may not be enough to break the drought. It usually requires repeated rounds of “week, all day rain” that fall on a moderate cut, said Francis, who is less likely to prevent as the climate still gets hot. “We will see more persistent weather patterns, where it will be dry for a longer period or are wet for a longer period,” Francis said. “Heat waves are under that umbrella, as well as drought – which is the recipe for fire.” © 2025 Bloomberg MP This article was generated from an automatic news agency feed without edits to text.