Safety tips for extended fire weather warnings in Brooklyn

Safety tips for extended fire weather warnings in the Bronx

How to stay safe during Tuesday's Fire Weather Warning 

Portions of the Hudson Valley under Fire Weather Warning

Are you experiencing ‘weather confusion?’ Here’s why.

Officials: Wildfire in Glassboro burns 133 acres; 75% contained

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News 12 Staff

1115greenmayornew_2024-11-15-07-06-47

There is some good news this morning as major progress is being made in containing this mess of Jennings Creek wildfire. Hi, everyone. I'm Tara Joyce and I'm Lisa. Sage. It is now almost 70% contained. But as news 12, Lisa tell us, there is still worry about what could happen today. She is live for us in Greenwood Lake again, Lisa. Yeah. Yeah. You know, still huge, huge progress, which is so great. We see uh the day side crew, they're rolling in, getting ready to do battle today. I have the mayor back here with me of Greenwood Lake. So, um, looking much better. Uh, same kind of plan as you yesterday, pretty much with, uh getting those back, uh, fires burning. Uh, but what's going on with power yesterday? We shut down some power. Um Exactly. Uh Today's plan Orange and Rockland has told me that they intend on keeping all service on in the in Green Lake, in the town of woke on this side of the mountain. However, if the situation does dictate it, this is a, a changing situation. Uh They will make a reverse calls to their customers. They will notify the village and the town and we will also put out messages, but it could also happen faster than that. So be prepared for a power outage. We certainly don't expect it though. So, yeah, and I mean, yesterday it was, was purposely turned off just so uh the guys could get into position and, and be safe. Well, actually yesterday that was the plan, but at the last minute they decided to do just what I'm explaining and we never had to get to that. So, so that was great and, and the plans the same today. So again, people should expect to see a lot of smoke, uh, some flames, but don't panic. That is, that's part of the, the deal. It's the nature of the beast. Um They expect to burn a couple of 100 acres today in order to achieve what has to be done. They're trying to bring the fire down over this mountain into Sterling Forest, uh to Long Meadow Road. If they can accomplish that today, it would be huge because the weather on Saturday looks like the wind is gonna pick up substantially and that's not conducive to what we need. And speaking of that, we want to find, we'll find out more from, from, uh, Matt Hammer. Thanks so much. Mayor is gonna stick around and we'll chat more. So, Matt, you heard what the mayor said? You know, that is certainly a concern right now. We're not really seeing any winds but, uh, the concern is that can kick up tomorrow and that's what you're seeing.

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1115lisa7aminterview_2024-11-15-07-08-25

Firefighters and state parks employees have been working tirelessly all week to get this fire under control, to get us to the point where we are right now and hopefully to 100% containment soon joining us. Now to talk about these efforts is dec forest ranger, Major Bob Rogers. This has not been an easy one for your cruise. Can you tell us what the biggest issues you guys have been facing are remain right now. Uh The biggest issues that we have on this fire specifically is the terrain. It is extremely steep, extremely rocky. It's very difficult to be moving people and hand crews around on, difficult to get engines and uh water up into the woods to fight the fire with the water. So we actually have to go through other uh clar fighting techniques like some of the burnout operations that the mayor just mentioned. Can you talk to us about those other techniques? We've been talking a lot about fighting fire with fire, right? These controlled burns uh trying to kind of manipulate the fire in the direction you need it to go. That will be most beneficial for your crew. What are some of the other options out there. Well, the using the fire, you know, the back of the burnouts and stuff is one of our most effective tools, especially in this type of environment. Um, we have used a lot of helicopter, uh, bucket drops over the last, you know, week on this, we've had state police helicopters. We've had National Guard Black Hawks, we had, uh, National Guard Chinooks running water for us again yesterday. Uh over 40 volunteer agencies or uh fire departments here again, a lot of hose lays a lot of U TV. S but that's a lot of water also comes down to a lot of hand tools and digging line main uh uh fuel here on this fire is a lot of leaf litter. So uh leaf blowers have been extremely useful for getting at least what we call scratch line down to get that top layer of fuel away. And major Rogers. I wanna ask you, you mentioned those uh 40 entities at least that are participating uh in the firefight right now. So this is a major collaborative effort. Obviously, this is something you train for. How are you making sure that all these crews are in sync? What that, that's uh managing is always the, the fun part of this. Yeah, every morning. Um We have, well, let's back up a second. We've got uh over 40 plus volunteer crews from across the state. Uh various fire departments come down, they Uh, right now they're on a 72 hour assignment. So all these volunteer companies are coming in from across the state up north out west Long Island from all over. Um, they're coming in, we get them signed in here at the station. The assignments and the plans for today were already made last night. So once we get all of the crews in, we assign them out to their squad bar to their division supervisors for the day. Uh Actually at eight o'clock here this morning, we go through a full operational briefing with the supervisors for each of those uh those departments so they can get uh their assignment for the day. They are told who their division supervisor is for the area that they're going to be assigned. Once we get done with that morning briefing, they break out into uh division breakouts where their division supervisor can actually go through a lot more of the very small minute, you know, on the ground. This is what exactly we're going to be doing. We're gonna have this department and this location we're going to be burning out of this area. So it, we do a lot of briefing on these fires to make sure everyone stays in the know and in sync have to be working together the entire time for sure, even though they're from different parts of the state, uh different parts of the country even at this point. Major. Thank you for the time this morning. Thank you for all the efforts out there. Have a good day.

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Crews made major progress Thursday due to low winds. 

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Officials: Jennings Creek wildfire is 69% contained

Crews made major progress Thursday due to low winds.

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Safety tips for extended fire weather warnings in Brooklyn

Safety tips for extended fire weather warnings in the Bronx

How to stay safe during Tuesday's Fire Weather Warning

Portions of the Hudson Valley under Fire Weather Warning

Are you experiencing ‘weather confusion?’ Here’s why.

Officials: Wildfire in Glassboro burns 133 acres; 75% contained

Safety tips for extended fire weather warnings in Brooklyn

Safety tips for extended fire weather warnings in the Bronx

How to stay safe during Tuesday's Fire Weather Warning

Portions of the Hudson Valley under Fire Weather Warning

Are you experiencing ‘weather confusion?’ Here’s why.

Officials: Wildfire in Glassboro burns 133 acres; 75% contained

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