About 100 homes evacuated in Rockland County as crews battle large brush fire
CONGERS, N.Y. -- A large brush fire in Rockland County scorched acres of land Friday, with flames close enough to melt siding off of a home.
Authorities say around 2 p.m., a CSX train began sparking the tracks, which quickly spread to large fields of tall grass that make up a bird sanctuary in Congers.
There were dozens of fires in three different towns spanning over about 15 miles of train track.
Sadly, much of the bird sanctuary is now burned to the ground.
In Haverstraw, fire spread over Route 9W into the mountainside on the back side of the Haverstraw Quarry. A police helicopter could be seen using a firefighting water bucket to try to reach hotspots.
Watch: Chopper 2 over Haverstraw brush fire
Officials say a fire in the Congers area luckily burned itself out but not before it caused minor damage to several homes.
Firefighters worked tirelessly to protect property and lives.
About 100 families voluntarily evacuated their homes as a result of these fires. Police officials say officers went door-to-door to let residents know there was danger in the area and help was available if needed.
"It was fast-moving. We had virtually every fire department in Rockland County respond, but they were also responding up north to the other two fires. So certainly a bit of a concern. The oldest resident that we had to evacuate was a 98-year-old lady right at the edge of Alpine, and the fire came right up to her backyard. She had a very small backyard. So thankfully -- there are a few injuries, we had a couple of firefighters that suffered heat exhaustion, they're wearing very heavy canvas equipment, you know, in very warm day -- but thankfully, no major injuries either," Clarkstown Supervisor George Hoehmann said.
One firefighter suffered some minor injuries.
Residents tried their best to protect property in the area by spraying water on homes.
"We got there, as I said, in the nick of time and were spraying water everywhere, so kind of held back, and we had some neighbors come in, too. So it was really nice to see the community coming together as people from down the street, all spraying and checking and things like that," Congers resident Sol de Leon said.
Watch Nick Caloway's report
Families in Congers watched helplessly as flames ripped through the area and two neighboring towns.
"It was literally a wall of fire about 20 feet, 30 feet high across the entire field, and it was just marching this way," resident Fred DeFrancesco said.
"Each of those trees back there, each of them went up in flames, up in flames, up in flames," resident Denise DeFrancesco said.
"It was like walking into a gray cloud. I'm still coughing from it," de Leon said.
Residents helped each other get to safety and extinguish the flames near their property amid the thick black smoke.
"The trees were less than 5 feet away. There was one where the entire inside of the trunk was shooting up flames. We could see it popping out, and the tree fell over. It was really scary. Very relieving that we were able to stave off the advance until the firefighters came in with their bigger hoses," de Leon said.
The flames reached the sides of some houses and turned a few backyard sheds into ash.
"My neighbor next to me, she's a 98-year-old woman, and that was one of my first thoughts. And then I have people next to me, which they're a couple and they're older, too. I was like, I need to get them out, so I knocked on all the neighbors' houses and made sure they were all out," resident Hellen Aguilar said.
Gigi Tom was at work while his wife helped his 97-year-old bedridden mother into a wheelchair toward safety.
"She was fully bedridden, not even knowing about anything and that's why I was so worried about her," he said.
Watch: Congressman Mike Lawler on brush fire
"This fire could have been far worse had our volunteer firefighters not acted so quickly, given the proximity of so many homes to the CSX line," said Rep. Mike Lawler, who represents New York's 17th District, which includes Rockland County.
While officials say it could have been worse, it was still a disaster.
"We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of cost to each of these towns and the untold cost of loss productivity from all the volunteer firefighters leaving their jobs and then shutting down the towns. We've had state roads closed, multiple state roads closed, multiple town and county roads closed. This is an unmitigated disaster for the residents and a huge inconvenience. Thankfully, no lives were lost, but it cost a lot of money in terms of emergency services for the towns and the county," Hoehmann said.
It's unclear why exactly the tracks sparked. Rockland County Executive Ed Day believes CSX may have been scraping the rails, which they do for routine maintenance.
"The damning thing right now from my perspective is it's a Red Flag Day. Everybody knows that. CSX should know that if they're going to be doing that, so they basically seemingly introduced sparks to dry brush and the results here were obvious," Rockland County Executive Ed Day said.
Officials say they plan to meet with CSX officials as soon as possible because there is a real concern that this could happen again.
CSX released the following statement:
"At approximately 1:57 p.m. ET today, CSX was contacted by Haverstraw Town Police requesting that train traffic be stopped due to brush fires near Gurnee Avenue in Haverstraw, NY. CSX inspected the train that was in the area and no issues were reported. We will continue to work in close coordination with first responders and hold train traffic out of the area to allow for a safe response. CSX is cooperating with Rockland County officials, who are investigating."
Firefighters will be checking on hotspots well into Friday night, possibly even into Saturday.
The Clarkstown town supervisor said there's also a lot of concern about the dry, warm weather that we are experiencing right now. He said he's hoping for rain this weekend, and a lot of it.
This was far from the only brush fire Friday.
Earlier in the day, a fire in Orange County closed a school and had some people evacuating from their homes, and in New Jersey, a brush fire in West Milford that's been burning since Wednesday is now 65% contained.
In the Bronx, firefighters were seen spraying down a brush fire off Pelham Bridge Road just after 1 p.m.
Gov. Kathy Hochul tweeted that the state was providing any resources needed to areas affected by brush fires.