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NY Gov. Hochul declares state of emergency amid Long Island brush fires
The fast-moving brush fires sent a large swath of eastern Long Island up in smoke.
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Ongoing brush fires sent a large swath of Long Island up in smoke on Saturday.
The fires broke out near the Suffolk County town of Westhampton around 1 p.m. on Saturday, and prompted officials to close several miles of Sunrise Highway, a major thoroughfare to the island's East End.
As of Saturday afternoon, New York stateâs transportation department said it had closed portions of Sunrise Highway past Exit 58.
The fast-moving blazes came after the National Weather Service issued a warning of elevated fire risk in the area on Saturday.
âIt is not under control as I speak, and probably will not be for several hours, if not probably tomorrow as well,â Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine said during a press conference early Saturday evening. âBecause the winds will keep the embers alive and weâll have to worry every day that this fire will start up again.â
Videos depicting immense clouds of billowing smoke were widely shared across social media.
Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a state of emergency in light of the fires. She said in a statement that the state's National Guard is providing air support, and that personnel from several other state agencies have also been dispatched to assist.
âI have also deployed personnel from the Office of Emergency Management, Office of Fire Prevention and Control, Department of Transportation, Department of Environmental Conservation, State Parks and the New York State Police to assist Suffolk Countyâs response to this crisis,â she said.
Some likened the fires to the Sunrise Fire of 1995, which burned 4,500 acres of pine barrens and forced more than 400 people to evacuate.
That disaster prompted changes to Long Islandâs firefighting policies and infrastructure, according to a 2015 Newsday retrospective. Officials questioned whether the dense area was being sufficiently cleared out with regular prescribed burns that would remove fuel for potential wildfires.
This is a developing story.
