The view was hazy, the hulking trees barely visible through the smoke. A campfire-like smell was wafting through the air vents of my car. Helicopters whirred overhead as they drew water from a lake.
I had found what I had been looking for: the Jennings Creek Fire.
I had made my way up to Orange County, N.Y., near the New Jersey border, from my home in the Bronx to report on the blaze, which had burned some 5,000 acres in the two states. It was the third of four fires in the New York area that I would write about over the course of just four days.
In June, I joined The New York Times’s Newsroom Fellowship Program to cover breaking news for the Metro desk. The fellowship is a yearlong program for early-career journalists, who work in the newsroom and receive specialized training.
As a native New Yorker I knew just how interesting the subject matter of the city could be. But I never imagined becoming a somewhat seasoned wildfire reporter in a matter of days.
It has been an exceptionally dry autumn in the Northeastern United States, and New York City has been under a drought warning for the first time in over 20 years. The landscape is dry, and sparks catch easily. If things worsen, the next steps will include a drought emergency and mandatory water restrictions.
My coverage of fires started on a Friday night, with a string of alerts, messages and photos that surfaced online: Smoke was billowing above Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I made a number of calls to city officials to find out what was happening, and quickly wrote a news story.
After receiving a call around 6:40 p.m., fire crews began working a large brush fire burning in a forested section of the park. Zach Iscol, the commissioner of the city’s office of emergency management, told me that the unseasonably dry conditions, coupled with gusty winds, were making the fire difficult to extinguish. Every time the wind blew, an ember would spread the flames.
A few days later, on Nov. 12, my editor asked me to cover the Jennings Creek Fire. I parked near the edge of the fire and walked through the hilly neighborhoods of Warwick, N.Y., wearing a face mask, notepad in hand. People seemed on edge, unsure if they should stay in their homes or evacuate the area. Emergency officials worked in shifts, taking turns trying to catch some rest. Business owners tried to keep busy by providing volunteer firefighters with food and supplies.
After reporting for about eight hours, I began to wonder if New York would experience a season of repeated wildfires, as has been the case for many states out West.
The next day, I reported a story about a fire in Inwood Hill Park in Upper Manhattan. It looked much like the fire at Prospect Park the week before, with clumps of dead leaves bursting into flames, and strong winds tossing them about. As was the case for the other fires, the cause was unknown.
Firefighters in New York City had responded to over 225 brush fires in just two weeks. Across the Hudson River, in New Jersey, forested sections of the Palisades cliffs caught fire, too.
I contemplated what I had been reporting. I am always shaken when I see videos of wildfires consuming sequoia trees in California, or hear about people following evacuation orders only to come home to a heap of ashes. I never expected to be living with the pungent smell of smoke in the concrete jungle where I had grown up.
People in the city carried on. Residents jogged and played ball games in a desensitized, what-else-could-go-wrong kind of way, even as the brush in Inwood Hill Park burned nearby. Some stopped and stared, or asked what was happening. But most New Yorkers kept moving.
In Warwick, residents pulled together coffee and meals to feed emergency responders while they waited to learn if they would need to evacuate. A barista in a coffee shop cried anxiously, thinking about her boyfriend, who had been working nonstop on the front lines of the Jennings Creek Fire. It is still burning.
There is rain in the local forecast for Thursday and Friday. It will give firefighters an edge, and provide relief to the dry ground, but may not be enough to solve the ongoing drought problem.
My experience writing about the flames will stay with me. What I saw did little to ease my feelings about the growing threat of climate change. But it also reminded that beauty can be found during ugly times. And in New York, that attitude is the backbone of society.
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