‘Near-tragedy was averted.’ Tree service crane topples onto Montville home

Greenwood Lake evacuees return home, prepare for storm that could stir up wildfire debris

2nd juvenile arrested in Evesham forest fire investigation

Stony Point mourns loss of 95-year-old former firefighter Stu Gates

Jersey City apartment fire displaces 30 residents; firefighter among 3 people injured

Suffolk firefighters discuss brushfire battles 

newyork

Lisa LaRocca

WC11220lisa8_2024-11-20-08-13-13

And we of course have been tracking the local wildfires for some time now. And finally there may be an end in sight in the Greenwood Lake case. I'm Tara Joyce and I'm Lisa Salvatorini. However, crews do say the hard work is not over yet, so let's get right to News 12's Lisa LaRocca beginning our Team 12 coverage in Orange County this morning. Lisa. Yeah, they'll be doing more mopping up. That's what they call it today, but, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Orange County executive here with us. Things winding down. You got to be happy. Clouds rain on the way. Oh yeah, very happy. You know this is the last day that we have the chinooks here. They're dumping the last remnants of water. That they could get before they go back up north, uh, we're gonna be, uh, sending back a lot of the volunteers from throughout the state today so this is their last day of their 72 hours. So thankful of the people that came out, businesses, firefighters, EMS, you know, police from all over the county in the area have come out just to. Being on here at the station to give people a break. So now things are really getting back to normal, and I mean we see normally this time it's packed and lined with firefighters and an apparatus and stuff and it looks like a normal day definitely winding down. I love spending time with you. You've been great. News 12 is getting the message out and uh we're hoping that the rain just puts the final stop in this fire, these little embers that might be smoldering up there. Uh, so very happy, very optimistic, and uh very thankful for the outpouring of support from all over the place. So, so today operations like I was saying that mop up where they they put water down, they churn the soil. That's pretty much like what they did yesterday, same today. Yeah, they're going to just look at spots that they're concerned about just for a last push, make sure that they're not leaving anything untouched. You see the Chinooks behind us are doing it right now and they're gonna be here until about lunchtime in and out that's about it. So, uh, obviously we'll still keep a big presence here in the fire, uh, the, the park service, DEC are not leaving. They're gonna keep a presence here as well, but, uh, again I think we're way down the road and we're, we're in great shape. Yeah, yeah, and that that's certainly good news. plus back to normal, you see a lot of things back to normal. The kids are back in school, the voluntary. Um, uh, evacuations have been lifted as well. Yeah, and the traffic, yeah, I signed it yesterday here at 4 o'clock. I signed the, you know, lifting our emergency operations, so the helicopters are flying all over as we're talking about, um, yeah, so we, we were through that emergency operation thing like yesterday, so the, uh, declaration, sorry. So yeah, we're such, uh, you know, great spot and again the outpouring of support restaurants you and I talked about West Point. You know, we're gonna send a lot of these volunteers to the next West Point game right after Thanksgiving. You know, you can't everybody's calling asking me what can we do for these men and women. It's just phenomenal. Yeah, no, it's great. I mean they've done amazing work so now all there's left to do really is wait for the rain. So we want to check in with Alex. So when is it gonna get here? Uh, first thing tomorrow morning, Lisa, some much, much needed rain, but it's all gonna come down at. Wants this isn't gonna be like a light rain and for some of us it's gonna come with some snow. We are under winter weather advisories for Sullivan and for Ulster County. You could expect some accumulating snow there, uh, for the rest of us, maybe some novelty snowflakes will mix in for Friday, but most of this action is Thursday. It's an all day mess, especially in the morning and in the evening. Let's talk about today. No worries about rain. It really doesn't arrive till about 12 o'clock in the morning and then it is just soaking wet and windy. We'll time it all out in a few.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/621810d8-06f6-49d2-bb48-ec94f7e1cba5/621810d8-06f6-49d2-bb48-ec94f7e1cba5.transcribe

WC1120lisa7_2024-11-20-07-42-45

There may be an end in sight to the fight against the Greenwood Lake wildfire. Finally. Hi everyone, I'm Tara Joyce, and I'm Lisa Salvadri. However, crews do say a lot of hard work still needs to be done today. So let's get right to it with News 12's Lisa LaRocca beginning our Team 12 coverage live in Orange County this morning. Lisa. Yeah and you know we're just talking the mayor and I were just talking about this is like the first cloudy day that I mean it's been gorgeous every day, right? Yes, uh, if we didn't have the situation we were in, I would have loved the weather, but it's still, it's still too dry. We, we need rain obviously for this fire, but we need rain, uh, in general our lake is down substantially, uh, anywhere. 12 inches plus and we have um like the Wawa Park community itself they're wells they need they need wells for that's how they wash their clothes and drink and drink so we have other issues to deal with other than fire related yeah but as far as the fire goes and you know you you kind of like to see these this cloudy, it means the storm is, is, is coming, uh. Things are looking much better. Yes, and some more good news this morning. It looks like the rain that was forecast to 1 inch and a half has been almost doubled to 2 2.5. That's, that's a lot more rain and that's gonna help us put this thing to bed. Yeah, yeah, and the nice thing is, and I was saying it earlier that you know we're really starting to see signs of. Everybody getting back to normal. The kids going back to school, roads opening up, the, uh, voluntary evacuation lifted, all good stuff. Exactly, um, the roads are open like, like you said, uh, but the Edgemere Avenue vicinity as the day goes on, you're gonna start seeing tree crews out there. They will have flaggers to help you go by, but as you as you heading in that direction. Slow down, uh, look out for workers. Look out for emergency workers, but they're, they're there and we saw them yesterday as we were driving. We pulled up and we saw, you know, they had to stop and they were working trees and part of that is because, uh, with everything burned and with rain coming, there's concern about stuff sliding once you get things get muddy, yeah, exactly, especially when you get that amount of rain, you know, a lot of these trees, their roots have been compromised. And that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to remove remove anything from potentially. Hitting the roadway, that's, that's the main objective. Sure, sure. All right, so you're gonna come back. We wanna also when we come back, talk about the amazing folks who have been just helping with the last last couple of 12 days. It's been really an effort, the mayor and I talking beforehand so we're gonna talk a little bit about that coming up, but now we want to know more about this rain that is coming. We can't wait for it to get here. Alex, what do you say? I say we are going to be drenched tomorrow morning, and it is such naked rain we haven't had. A storm in months. You have to go back to August, but we do have not just rain, but a lot of wind and even a little bit of wintry weather coming our direction if you're in Sullivan or Ulster County for the wintry weather, but the rest of us are just talking plain old rain and plenty of it. Winds are light today, so that is going to help with any fire containment today. Tomorrow starting dark and early, we have got gusts up to 35 MPH, so it's gonna be a really messy morning commute. I'll show you how much rain we'll see in a few.

https://vod.prod.alticeustech.com/transcode/62bfc32f-c11b-41ec-b8bd-bca99906128b/62bfc32f-c11b-41ec-b8bd-bca99906128b.transcribe

Hand crews are conducting meticulous "mop up" operations to extinguish hot spots and New York Air National Guard Chinooks are assisting with bucket drops.

Choose Your Region

Be the first to know

Change

Be the first to know

Relief in sight! Crews making final push to extinguish Greenwood Lake fire hot spots

Hand crews are conducting meticulous "mop up" operations to extinguish hot spots and New York Air National Guard Chinooks are assisting with bucket drops.

More Stories

‘Near-tragedy was averted.’ Tree service crane topples onto Montville home

Greenwood Lake evacuees return home, prepare for storm that could stir up wildfire debris

2nd juvenile arrested in Evesham forest fire investigation

Stony Point mourns loss of 95-year-old former firefighter Stu Gates

Jersey City apartment fire displaces 30 residents; firefighter among 3 people injured

Suffolk firefighters discuss brushfire battles

‘Near-tragedy was averted.’ Tree service crane topples onto Montville home

Greenwood Lake evacuees return home, prepare for storm that could stir up wildfire debris

2nd juvenile arrested in Evesham forest fire investigation

Stony Point mourns loss of 95-year-old former firefighter Stu Gates

Jersey City apartment fire displaces 30 residents; firefighter among 3 people injured

Suffolk firefighters discuss brushfire battles

More from News 12

City officials continue to tackle brushfire aftermath at Inwood Hill Park

Carbon monoxide leak kills 1, injures 2 in Sullivan County

Rain on its way to NYC, days after mayor announces drought warning for 1st time in 22 years

Eyesore no more: Iconic Bridgeport smokestack and power plant to be demolished

Southbury disaster center closes as deadline for FEMA assistance ends

Some evacuation orders lifted as fire crews hold containment lines in Greenwood Lake