Residents on Edgemere Avenue and Wah-ta-Wah Park in the Warwick village of Greenwood Lake were asked to voluntarily evacuate Saturday after flames broke a nearby fire line.
Warwick Town Supervisor Jesse Dwyer says resdients were directed to a shelter at Greenwood Lake Middle School. None of the homes, however, were ultimately damaged, and the request has since been lifted for those in Wah-ta-Wah Park and those north of 120 Edgemere Avenue.
“It’s absolutely been critical for people to abide by the voluntary request. We did not make it mandatory because we didn’t feel that structures were actually in danger. What we really needed was we needed people to evacuate the area with their vehicles so we could get fire aparatus staged to strictly work on structure protection," he explains. "And as of right now, we've lost no homes, we’ve lost no structures, and the fire departments have been doing an incredible job.”
The Greenwood Lake Fire — also called the “Jennings Creek Fire" and the “Sterling Forest Fire” — is the largest of several fires to break out in recent weeks, as drought conditions and high winds fuel sparks across the Northeast. The New York state Department of Environmental Conservation says the Greenwood Lake fire is 88 percent contained. It has burned more than 5,300 acres in and around the Sterling Forest since starting a few weeks ago. The cause is still under investigation.
New York State Forest Ranger Major Robert Rodgers says roughly 300 firefighters, forest rangers, police officers, and National Guard members are on the scene — including helicopter crews and a team from Montana. He says digging fire lines and airdropping buckets of water has been crucial to fighting the fire, but it could be a while before it’s officially out.
“Realistically, Mother Nature is the one that’s gonna put this fire out. Our folks on the ground, we’re digging, we're cleaning up, we’re finding hot spots, we’re extinguishing them as we go — but what we really need here is a large quality of rain," says Rodgers. "Not huge downpour, all at once, but a nice continuous rain or a good heavy snow. So folks are going to be seeing smoke in this area for weeks to come.”
The Greenwood Lake area has a shot at getting some rain Wednesday night, Thursday, and Friday, according to the National Weather Service. In the meantime, a statewide burn ban remains in effect, and Orange County has extended a state of emergency.
The Greenwood Lake Union Free School District was closed Monday, but Supervisor Dwyer says schools will decide this afternoon whether to reopen Tuesday. Dwyer says the shelter at Greenwood Lake Middle School will likely close Monday, and a new resource area for those in need will open at the American Legion on Mountain Lakes Lane.
He says the best thing residents can do right now is simply stay away from the flames. He says East Shore Road between 120 Edgemere Avenue and Woods Road remains closed to traffic for the time being.
"We understand that we're asking people to kind of stay away from their homes, which is a really difficult thing to do. Residents have been cooperating extremely well, and we're so grateful for that," says Dwyer. "Hopefully in the near future we can start winding this thing down, but I can tell you right now: crews will be in the area for at least the next couple of weeks, just monitoring the situation, making sure that there are no additional fires in the woods that are unaccounted for, and really just focusing on protecting the structures and the homes within the Greenwood Lake area."
Meantime, a state parks employee who died helping to fight the fire on November 9th is being laid to rest. Officials say 18-year-old Dariel Vasquez, a graduate of Ramapo High School in Rockland County, was killed by a falling tree while working to establish a fire line. Governor Hochul has ordered flags at all state buildings to be flown at half-staff starting Monday.
