Fire crews battle early morning house fire in Watertown

Wildfire update: Firefighters double containment, Greenwood Lake school closed

Lost dog rescued from Silver Sands State Park marsh

Health impacts of wildfire smoke: What you need to know

 Funeral services announced for fallen state parks worker

Burnout operations prompt road closures in Greenwood Lake

newyork

News 12 Staff

WC111lisa830_2024-11-11-08-47-45

Overnight showers again, not going to make a big dent when it comes to what we need to stop. What's happening across our region. Crews are working tirelessly this Monday morning to contain that fire in Orange County. I'm Tara Joyce and I'm Lisa. S sadly, a teenager helping fight those flames did die. Let's get right to news 12. She is in Greenwood Lake with an exclusive update from the county executive there, Lisa. Yeah. Well, the good news is they are making some progress. They saved homes last night. Let's get right to Orange County executive Steve Newhouse. Thanks for joining us. It's, I know it's so busy. All the guys lining up getting ready. What can you tell us so? Good morning? Um, obviously we've made it through tonight, which is great. It was a tug of war pretty much all night long between the firefighters and the fire. It was, uh, really touch and go between some of the houses, but they did a phenomenal job. Uh, the rain helped a little bit the wind directions even better. Uh, so we're getting some breathing room but we have a lot of work to go. Uh, we think we got about 2500 acres that it's either on fire or has burnt or simmering, uh or smoldering. So we're going to go up there and attack it. We just gave out uh marching orders. Everybody's broken up into different teams with the state uh forest Rangers uh as our running point. So this is still their scene and we're backing them up, but we feel a lot better right now, but we're not going to get a better picture until we have a couple of air assets. I have two Black Hawk helicopters inbound as well as one state trooper helicopter. So we're gonna be able to get a good idea of what happened overnight and where this is heading the wind direction over the next few days also is is favorable to us. It's pushing it back to where it had burnt already, which is good because now it's going to be a lower fire if it does reignite as opposed to a brand new timber. So uh we feel like we have a little bit of a better hand. I have a lot of manpower from the tri state area all over the place coming in. And uh I think we got the message out and no homes were lost. Uh I know you said it was, it was close, it was touch and go. Oh yeah, we were, we were in people's backyard. I was on people's porches and the fire was, you know, feet away while the firefighters were pushing us back. Uh I brought in the Deputy Commissioner of Homeland Security. I said, you gotta see this for yourself. I'm a front line type of guy and I showed them and they were like, wow, so we have everything the cavalry is coming from Albany, uh to see what, uh, what's going on here so we can give us those resources we need. That's great. You said with the Black Hawk helicopters that they're gonna be taking water out of the lake and dumping it down. Absolutely. So we got 33 helicopters that are, uh, they're gonna be on station doing work as well as our ground people, um pushing things back. We also have heavy equipment, so we have a lot of stuff here. So it's a great cooper between uh all the local assets as well as the county. I have our county fuel trucks are here to refuel all the, uh, you know, do a hot fill on the fire truck. So we are full on, you guys are on it. So, what do people in the area need to know? I mean, there's no evacuations. We just, just everybody's got to be patient. You know, we're trying our best here to get these things of this pushed back. We did shut off power and we're going to try to get that restored. But, you know, if the fire had burned some of these holes or in that area, we can't risk having live wires while our guys are working there. So, just be patient with us. Help each other out. If you have a neighbor that lives here, tell them to come state your for a night or two or at least buy them, you know, get them some lunch. I think things are gonna get progressively better over the next couple of days. Especially now that we have the resources that we need here and the wind, the wind direction. That's huge. Absolutely. A big help for us. So that's something, you know, we had a very good briefing. We haven't had one of those in, in a few days. So, uh, last night was very hairy. So, well, when we were driving here from, you know, from where we were earlier and we're driving along the lake and you can see there are spots that are smoldering. You can see, you know, it's, it's scary to say yesterday there was literally an eclipse over this area of Orange County. You know, it's just nothing but smoke. You could barely see the sun coming through it. So it's a lot better today that rain pushed it down a little bit, that ground is very dry. So this could kindle up very quickly. So that's why these guys are all been sent out here. We have roving uh troops that are gonna actually relieve some of these guys. So, uh, it's square way my people that work for me are the best and they are now being put where they need to be, the state is running the show, but they are letting us do what we do best and as far as what people can do to help as well, just before we wrap quickly, obviously careful, do not throw cigarette butts out. And most of these have been set by, by humans. So, you know, uh, just be careful with it and, and, uh, we've had pop ups while we're fighting these in other areas of the county, uh, that we've had to thankfully put out of control very quickly. But, um, it's, it's something that people just gotta be responsible. Very good. County. Orange County executive Steve Newhouse. Thanks so much for being here. Um, and all, and also that all of these people are just from, all over the place, they're from all over the place. And then I gotta tell you, we have so many people delivering food and water. It is well received. I think they're really overwhelmed with it. Now, they have so many, but, you know, we're taking the food and putting it in a, in a fire truck. So while these guys are out there, they're able to drink. So the one thing I'll say is when you come back to your house that's saved, you might have bottles of Gatorade that are empty in your backyard because these guys just kept moving on your house is saved. They're going to your neighbor's house. Uh, so there might be a little bit of a trash, clean up to do, but it's well worth saving your house. How, what would you say about how many people are out here? Are you gonna have out in the, uh, out in the woods? At least hundreds of them? And we've asked for more. There was a handful of state resources up until the last couple of days. So that's why, you know, between that and the wind, it went from 300 acres on fire on Saturday to 2000. So now about 2500 acres. So that's a lot of forest that's been damaged and destroyed. We were earlier at, at one of the, you know, at a convenience store and one of the people who worked there, she lives on the lake, she showed me, she said you could see that orange, orange glow on Saturday. And yesterday she said this morning though, take a look and she was very relieved, you know, you weren't really seeing anything. Yeah. And it's burnt out too a lot. I mean, last night was a full on raging forest fire. They call it brush fire. This is a forest fire. And, uh, it looked like what you and I see on, in California on a regular basis and I, I know old timers that are working here with me and they've never seen it like this ever. So at the end of the day. Uh, we did lose a, a young gentleman on Saturday, which is a tragedy. This is a tough business. These guys are here are risking themselves right now. A lot of accidents happen. It's dangerous work. Um But we're proud to do it. And you also mentioned you're bringing in some construction equipment as well. I mean, that's part of the deal with this. It's not just putting water on it. You gotta churn earth over and get underneath. Yeah. So we're building fire lines when we can. The terrain is very difficult, very rocky and hilly. So it's tough to get crews in and out. So we have EMTS here that are basically field emts that can go out in the, you know, with U TV S and pick these guys up if they need help. But we're also, we did a lot of back burning yesterday too. So people might have seen it expanding. But that was us. If you burn it out when the fire gets to you, it's already out like you're getting rid of that fuel. So that's kind of what they call a controlled burn to like meat it up. So we did a lot of that yesterday as that was coming down the line because we knew we were gonna get overwhelmed. But if it's, if the fuel is burnt out before it gets there, it can't go any further. But I'm telling you it was within 10 ft of most houses and the, the flames were up high. The flames were up high when major trees that are burnt down. So, uh, it was, this is a state forest and they lost a lot of, uh, timber. So, no pun intended. So we're not quite out of the woods yet, but we're getting, we're making progress. I feel a lot more confident this morning than I did last night. Ok. We have the resource now that I needed last night and that the state needed. So we feel a lot better. So that's good. All right. So hopefully these guys stay safe and it's scary in there. Absolutely. And keep these guys in your prayers and of course, a young gentleman we lost on Saturday. All right. Thanks so much again for taking the time out. So you can see a lot going on here. They had a long day ahead of them. So, of course, we'll continue to keep you updated. Let's go back to the studio.

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The Department of Environmental Conservation forest rangers are leading firefighting efforts, supported by state police helicopters and drones monitoring the fire's spread. 

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‘All hands on deck.’ Gov. Hochul mobilizes state resources to combat Greenwood Lake fire

The Department of Environmental Conservation forest rangers are leading firefighting efforts, supported by state police helicopters and drones monitoring the fire's spread.

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