Metro-area residents woke up to more smoke again Sunday as a wildfire jumped a containment line overnight along the New York-New Jersey border, sparking additional evacuations.
The smoke was wafting down from the stubborn Jennings Creek blaze, which so far has consumed more than 5,000 acres of forest straddling the two states. The wildfire gained new life when flames jumped a containment line late Saturday, according to a New York State Police Facebook post.
The blaze expanded by about 4 or 5 acres, forcing firefighters to evacuate about 160 homes on the New York side, although the flames never touched any buildings as they tore through the woods near Warwick.
By 9 a.m. Sunday, the blaze was nearly 90 percent contained, authorities said.
“The Jennings Creek wildfire is primarily in the Sterling Forest State Park and is boxed in by fire lines,” the state police wrote at the time.
The fire’s smoke poured into the Big Apple overnight thanks to a low pressure system sitting in the Atlantic Ocean that’s dragging in wind from the northwest, said Cody Braud, a meteorologist with Fox Weather.
Braud said he wasn’t surprised that the fire caught up again, since relative humidity has been so low and wind gusts have been hitting 15 to 20 mph.
“It won’t move smoke as far downstream, but when you get those gusts, it makes it more challenging to actually fight the fire,” he said. “And the ground is still dry — that hasn’t changed at all.”
But the smoky haze won’t stick around for long, he said.
“It should not be really dense anywhere in the region,” Braud noted. “The winds aren’t super strong right now, so it’s not getting too far. And the fire is still relatively contained, there’s not a ton of smoke coming out.
“You still may see people reporting the smoke into tomorrow, maybe into Tuesday,” he said. “But it probably won’t be as significant Tuesday since our relative humidity values are going to go back up because of an approaching storm system later this week.
“So you’ll see that kind of let up the next few days.”
Recent wildfires have forced residential evacuations from Jackson to Rockaway townships in New Jersey to Orange County, NY.
Braud said the metro area may finally get some relief from the threat of more devastation when a storm system moves in Wednesday and lingers through next weekend.
“We’re finally getting — not drought-busting rain — but maybe up to an inch of rain,” he said, adding that most will fall Thursday and Friday.
“The heaviest rain will probably be north of New York,” he said. “But it’s still more rain than we’ve seen in God knows how long.”
Then the storm system will hover over the area through Sunday, leading to a windy, cloudy and dreary end to the week.
“It’s actual November weather,” Braud said.
The National Weather Service has issued several warnings for New York and New Jersey declaring an “elevated fire weather concern” throughout the region — mostly from the winds and low humidity.