Hochul declares Jennings Creek Fire fully contained

Fourteen days after it started, the Jennings Creek/Sterling Forest State Park wildfire on the New York border was declared fully contained. The progress was made possible due to the collaboration of local, state, and out-of-state firefighting professionals and volunteers, including just about every local fire station in the tri-county area (Warwick Town Supervisor Jesse Dwyer posted a running list on the town Facebook page). Governor Kathy Hochul made the announcement Friday afternoon, Nov. 22, when the area also saw significant snowfall.

”For two weeks, firefighting crews and staff responded from around the state to battle the Jennings Creek wildfire and [on Nov. 22] they were successful in fully containing the fire,” Governor Hochul said. “From the start, we launched a coordinated response with every available resource to help our first responders complete this mission, and could not have done this without the professional and volunteer crews that worked alongside our partners in New Jersey, and crews from Colorado and Montana. I thank all of them for their hard work, spending time away from their families and working tirelessly every day to keep New Yorkers safe.”

As part of the response, the governor had also deployed Army National Guard Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, as well as State Police Huey helicopters. According to Hochul, in total, these helicopters dumped more than 500,000 gallons of water on the fire over the course of a week. The state also deployed bulldozers and bulldozer operators and other professional staff and volunteers to contain the fire. She noted that since Nov. 10, 427 nearly all-volunteer fire companies sent more than 1,300 firefighters and equipment to help.

The fire has burned 5,304 acres across New York and New Jersey. The fire is now 100% contained and 100% controlled. Hochul said the State’s Incident Management Team, along with volunteer crews, have now “demobilized.” However, in case there were still small pockets of fire deep inside the forest, fire crews from DEC, Parks forest rangers, and Montana planned to continue to patrol the perimeter and conduct “mop-up operations” as needed.

Despite the recent precipitation, New York’s statewide burn ban will remain in effect until Nov. 30.

Sterling Forest State Park partially reopened for hiking and hunting effective last Saturday east of Long Meadow Road and north of Route 17A. Trails in the fire zone will remain closed indefinitely.