After A Month Of No Rain And Record Dry Conditions, A Fire Broke Out In Brooklyn’s Prospect Park

Facebook Tweet LinkedIn

After a month with no measurable precipitation and some of the driest conditions New York has ever seen, a fire broke out in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Friday. The brush fire burned two acres of woods in the park and drew about 100 firefighters to contain the blaze. One firefighter sustained minor injuries.

Warm November? These 25 Cities Are Smashing Heat Records at an Astonishing Pace

Tesla PD? More Police Departments Are Getting EVs

While the official cause of the fire is undetermined, New York and surrounding areas have been at historically high risk of wildfire in recent weeks. According to the NOAA, Brooklyn received only 0.01 inches of rain in October, the lowest amount since records began in 1895. As of November 5, 100% of Brooklyn was in moderate to exceptional drought, per the U.S. Drought Monitor. Dry vegetation and high winds in recent days created ideal conditions for fire spread.

Over the same weekend, other, more dangerous wildfires burned in more forested parts of the New York metropolitan area. Several small brush fires ignited in Long Island, while hundreds of acres of woodland burned in wildfires throughout the New Jersey Piedmont Plains, as well as a 127-acre fire near Berlin, Connecticut.

Canadian firefighters and crews from the New York City Fire Department are currently helping to contain the simultaneous blazes. In what has been a historic period of unprecedented extreme weather – from hurricanes in Asheville to 80°F temperatures on Halloween – the tri-state wildfires serve as yet another example of how once-rare weather events and anomalies are fast-becoming climate normals.