As winds out of the northwest gusted at near 40 miles per hour early Saturday, it didn’t take long for the embers from a fire that began around 9:30 a.m. in a Manorville backyard, “following an attempt to make s’mores,” to ignite multiple brush fires that would grow to burn 600 acres in the Westhampton pine barrens.
Suffolk County police arson detectives released their preliminary findings on Monday, ruling the cause of the fires accidental. By reviewing 911 calls, detectives determined that, with wind making it hard to start a fire, the people making the s’mores “used cardboard to light the fire.” The backyard was soon in flames, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said at a press conference Monday afternoon.
Extremely dry conditions and high winds carried embers southeast from one spot to the next, which “continuously started new fires,” Mr. Catalina said. The initial blaze was extinguished around 10:30 a.m. About an eighth of a mile away, at 12:57, the first fire on the south side of Sunrise Highway was reported.
“Then it went crazy in the pine barrens in Westhampton around Gabreski Airport,” County Executive Ed Romaine said Sunday. The airport is home to the Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing. Personnel were evacuated as a precaution, and the base’s two fire trucks and an HH-60G Jolly Green II helicopter were deployed to help contain the flames. Three Black Hawk helicopters from the New York Army National Guard base in Ronkonkoma were deployed as well, each flying water bucket missions.
Volunteer fire departments from across the county joined the effort alongside numerous state and local agencies. “The coordinated response has been impressive, with over 90 volunteer departments and local police working hard to contain the fire,” Representative Nick LaLota reported from the scene on Sunday morning.
The fires shut down Sunrise Highway in both directions east of exit 62. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore both declared states of emergency. “Dry weather and high winds, along with damage to woodland areas caused by southern pine beetle infestation, is exacerbating the conditions for dangerous wildfires,” Ms. Moore said in a release on Saturday afternoon.
The Amagansett and East Hampton Fire Departments were both called up at around 1:45, but East Hampton firefighters were still working at that point to stop a structure fire at a house on Park Street off Wheelock Walk. Amagansett sent nine firefighters and a brush truck. They arrived in Westhampton by 2:30 and were teamed up with brush trucks from departments around the county.
“You’d go into the woods, use all your water, come out and refill,” said Amagansett Chief Chris Beckert.
The East Hampton Fire Department, after clearing the Park Street fire around 3:15, headed straight to Westhampton with personnel and a brush truck. “We were stationed inside Gabreski off one of the runways,” said East Hampton’s chief, Duane Forrester. “We were working the outside line of Gabreski, putting out small fires and hotspots.”
He had high praise for the officials who took charge of the situation. “They were on top of it really quickly when it started, and they started large-scale mutual aids.”
Chief Beckert agreed. “It went really well,” he said. “I think they called in a lot of resources quickly, which definitely helped.” His crew was there for five or six hours, and by the time it left “almost all of the visible flames were knocked down. It was just hotspots.”
Other South Fork departments were on hand as well, but Montauk remained here to cover other firehouses.
Two firefighters were injured fighting the brush fires and two industrial buildings had some damage, the county executive said, but no houses were lost.
Many on the South Fork, watching news of the Westhampton fires from afar, were quick to reiterate concerns about large swaths of woods here that have been decimated by the southern pine beetle, leaving precarious stands of dead trees and piles of felled trees on the ground: along Route 114 between East Hampton and Sag Harbor, on Napeague, and in Hither Woods in Montauk.
The area of the Westhampton fire was not so different from Napeague, Chief Beckert said, but with smaller trees and fewer on the ground, “which gave us better access there.”
With so many dead and downed trees here, “the playbook from years past may not work,” said Chief Forrester. Putting trucks in the woods to find and fight a fire is harder with so many obstacles on the ground, and “you have to worry about dead standing trees [if] they snap and collapse on top of the truck.”
“The state has come up with a plan for the [Napeague] stretch, the town needs to come up with a plan for along 114,” Chief Beckert said. It’s a process that has already begun, Chief Forrester said. “We’re formulating a plan, should anything happen.”
“In the wake of yesterday’s fires, I will be calling on New York State agencies to increase efforts to combat the devastating effects of the pine beetle on the local ecosystem and surrounding communities,” State Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni said in a release on Sunday. “Along with state and local experts, I will continue to work to expedite all possible solutions to decrease the threat of future wildfires across the East End.”
Last weekend’s fires “made me realize how quick and fast a fire can move. And it can happen out here,” Chief Beckert said, urging people to obey burn bans and to be careful with outside fires on Red Flag days, when fire risks are high.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s fire danger map still put the risk of fire high yesterday on Long Island, New York City, and in the Hudson Valley.
With Reporting by Christopher Gangemi and Baylis Greene
