Why the Prospect Park Fire and Jennings Creek Fire are so unusual

Over the weekend, a very small forest fire broke out in a hilly and densely vegetated area of ​​Prospect Park, a green space in Brooklyn. The 2-acre fire attracted about 100 firefighters as residents were warned to stay away from the park. Meanwhile, on the New York-New Jersey border, another fire, the Jennings Creek wildfire, has burned thousands of acres, sending smoke billowing across much of New York City and killing an 18-year-old New York State volunteer forester , who died while responding to the fire.

Is that typical? Not quite. But the northeast has been suffering from severe drought for weeks. These fires and the dozens of others currently burning in the Northeast and throughout the Ohio River Valley, as well as numerous others in the western United States, are the result of months of unusually hot and dry weather across much of the country.

Okay, pause: What Is a drought? Put simply, a drought is a dry period, i.e. a long period of time without rain or snow, which leads to water shortages. Droughts can (and do) occur anywhere in the world; They are not just a feature of a desert or a regional problem. Extreme drought can stress landscapes and water tables, whether a city is built on top of it or not. If a drought lasts long enough, people in that location may lose access to water.

While the western United States is associated with drought, it is notable that drought is spreading to this extent in the Northeast. And current forecasts show the conditions will continue for weeks or even months. “It is problematic to observe droughts in all parts of the country. It’s not just a regional problem,” said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center. “No matter where you are, drought can and will affect you.”

Firefighters extinguished the fire in Prospect Park. Rain mercifully passed over New York on Sunday evening, wiping out much of the smoke drifting across the East Coast, obscuring the fact that a cluster of fires continued to burn in New Jersey.

As the smoke clears, attention should not be delayed: Millions of people in the Northeast remain under wildfire warnings, signaling conditions where anything capable of producing a spark could likely lead to a fire. But we are all now living with drought, extreme heat and fire – and our relationship with water depends on how bad things can get.

Why is the drought so bad?

For much of the country, October was an extremely hot and dry month. We currently expect 2024 to be the hottest year on record, a statement that meteorologists at the World Meteorological Organization are expressing confidence in, even with more than a month left.

According to the US Drought Monitor, long periods of hot and dry conditions have resulted in every state in the country experiencing drought – an unprecedented statistic.

There is no single driver responsible for the extent of current drought conditions. Even as our global average temperatures rise due to climate change, our short-term weather patterns will continue to change. For example, although Hurricane Helene brought tons of moisture to places like North Carolina just over a month ago, even western North Carolina is now unusually dry. How can that be? Because it’s been so hot and dry the last few weeks – enough to wipe out any sign of a so-called millennial event.

“When I started looking at the last six months of data, you saw that places like New Jersey, the Ohio River Valley and much of the Plains are getting 12 to 15 inches less precipitation than normal for this time of year,” Fuchs said . “New York has a 10-inch deficit. This is very extreme for this part of the country.”

And then there are the warmer temperatures later in the year, which will ultimately compound the worst effects of the ongoing drought. Temperatures usually drop significantly by November. Trees drop their leaves and fall into a dormant state. Certain animals hibernate or go into energy saving mode. Snow begins to accumulate at higher elevations, retaining moisture that gradually melts during the warmer periods.

But even though it’s 80 degrees in New York in November, trees and vegetation still use water. This creates an additional period of time during which the entire water system is stressed, and this puts a strain on water sources – lakes and streams begin to decline and the soil retains less moisture. Vegetation that grew earlier in the year begins to dry out – triggering forest fires.

“It really doesn’t take long to transition into a hot, dry environment and suddenly you have all this extra fuel for wildfires,” Fuchs said. “This is the perfect mix for fire to bloom.”

Are more forest fires to be expected?

Drought is a normal part of our climate, but it is not normal that there is so much drought in such large parts of the country.

This extreme dry period is part of the bigger picture that scientists now expect: that our weather will become more extreme and unpredictable, and that we will collectively experience greater fluctuations from incredibly dry periods to incredibly wet periods.

These dry periods, says Fuchs, are due to the fact that warmer temperatures continue even in the actually colder parts of the year, increasing the demand on our water systems.

By the way, this need includes the water consumption of you and me and everyone else. Simply multiply our daily showers, drinking from the tap, running our dishwashers and washing machines, washing our cars, watering our houseplants (etc.) by the millions of people who live in a watershed, the area that has a single water source for a particular region.

When an already stressed landscape is put under too much stress, the risk of wildfires increases as water levels in streams and our groundwater tables decrease.

To better manage the conditions we see today and the climate we should expect in the future, we must understand that no place is immune from drought conditions, Fuchs said. “Even if you think you haven’t been affected by droughts in the past, it is becoming increasingly important for people to know where their water comes from and to conserve it as best as possible at all times,” he said.

“We are actively experiencing severe impacts of climate change,” said Aradhna Tripati, a climate scientist at UCLA who helped compile the latest national climate assessment. Climate change “is no longer a theoretical or distant threat, but rather an abstract threat. That won’t happen here in the future. It doesn’t just happen in places far from where we live. Now all weather is affected.”

Yes – even in New York City.