Joseph Nickischer can’t remember wildfires like this.
“We’ve had fires that lasted this long, but not this big,” Nickischer, a former chief and current volunteer with the Patterson Volunteer Fire Department, told New York Focus. “You’re talking fire lines. … You’re not measuring them in a couple hundred feet. You’re measuring them in miles.”
Wildfires torched over 6,000 acres in and around New York in the last few weeks. The Hudson Valley and the Catskills bore the brunt of the damage, though smaller brush fires broke out across New York City. Hundreds of people evacuated their homes. Schools closed. Dariel Vasquez, an 18-year-old New York state parks department employee, died while battling the blazes. This October was the driest in well over a century, creating the conditions for November’s wildfires to spark and rapidly spread.
But as the risk of fires in New York has grown over the years, one thing hasn’t changed: the number of park rangers and volunteer firefighters responsible for p... Read more
