(Long Island, NY) It used to be a problem “somewhere else.” For many years now, Air National Guard units are called upon to help battle wildfires across the nation, using a combination of “smoke eater” crews on the ground and airborne crews who drop fire retardant on the blazes. The amount of burned acreage is enormous, causing environmental problems, health issues for asthma and emphysema sufferers, and big insurance headaches for those with homes in the path of the fires.
Many states struggle with summer fires. California, Montana, Colorado, Arizona and several other states find themselves fighting a combination of man-made fire problems, blazes started by lightning strikes and other phenomena.
Now, Long Island is experiencing its own little version of the environmental nightmare that other states deal with year after year. A recent blaze which started in Deer Park brought power outages and a suspension of the Long Island Railroad service in some sections. Dry brush, a lack of rain and low humidity combined to make conditions fire-friendly. At the time of this writing, no estimate has been made as to damages or acreage burned.
Conservationists on Long Island will remind us that more than seven million acres were destroyed by wildfires in America last year. While the Deer Park fire is certainly not as massive as the wildfires in California or Montana, the concerns for those living in the area are exactly the same. How big will the blaze get? Should we evacuate? What could happen to our homes? And most importantly, could another fire break out?
In 1995, Long Island saw its driest summer in seven decades. Two fires in August burned more than five thousand acres, and in the wake of the disaster many Long Islanders voiced concern about the potential for future fires. Nobody wants a duplicate of the 1995 disaster. Interest in wildfires has grown considerably-one New York fire fighting academy saw a jump in enrollment from about 100 people to over six hundred for a course that includes a how-to on battling wildfires.
This year’s conditions aren’t nearly as awful as those that contributed to the ’95 disaster, but that won’t make the 900 Long Island Power Authority customers who lost power thanks to the Deer Park blaze any less concerned.
With all this concern, what can the average person do to make things any better? The short answer is ‘not much,’ but also ‘quite a lot.’ In the ‘not much’ department, the dry hot weather that makes conditions ripe for a sudden fire are quite out of our control; in the “quite a lot” category, being mindful of the dryness can go a long way towards preventing a wildfire. Lit cigarettes, fireworks, poorly extinguished campfires and other sources of sparks or open flame are very much in the control of you and me. The old cliché is really true-only YOU can prevent forest fires, and there are plenty of instances where fire investigators have discovered human causes for the burns in Montana, California and elsewhere. We have NOT developed past the point of being able to abandon the cliché just yet.
There are other causes for fire that aren’t as obvious as the abandoned campfire. Under the right conditions, sparks from a passing railroad car can ignite grassland growing by the side of the tracks. A lightning strike can ignite dry timber. This is where readiness training for local firefighters comes in. Sometimes, getting on top of a problem quickly and efficiently is the only way to prevent disaster. Much depends on the weather—if there is sufficient moisture, dry timber isn’t as much of an issue, grassy areas aren’t as prone to the dryness that can contribute to an out-of-control blaze.
When it comes to fire prevention, the human factor shouldn’t be discounted, even in wetter weather. Guaranteed, those living near the fire zones in Montana, California, and Colorado have a much higher awareness of what can cause and aggravate a wildfire. The key to keeping Long Island as fire-free as possible is to bring that heightened awareness to LI. Support of local fire departments, conservation groups, and ecological concerns are part of that awareness. Educating out-of-state visitors about the local dangers through appropriate publicity campaigns, activism, and even warning signs in outdoor areas can go a long way towards preventing a wildfire. It worked for decades thanks to a little cartoon character called Smokey Bear. These days, a bit more may be required, but the central message is the same; it is up to us to prevent future disasters like the burn of 1995.
