Long Island Wildfires

It would not rain again for weeks. Day after day, sun worshipers and people working outside took full advantage of the dry conditions. The warm summer winds that made the beaches and ballfields so comfortable were also leeching moisture from plants and drying out brush to dangerously high levels. Firefighters in areas prone to brush and wildland fires were expecting and preparing for the worst. They could not, however, envision what they would soon face.

Across the island's 120-mile length the drought began to take its toll on lawns, shrubs and other plants. Watering restrictions were put in place as the dry weather and low rainfall affected the reservoir areas in upstate New York as well. It was quickly becoming the longest dry spell in many years. The record for rainless days on Long Island is 36, set in October and November 1924. By July 5, 1995, a drought watch was already in effect.

The Rocky Point Fire

At about 3 P.M. on Aug. 21, Captain Robert Conklin of the New York State Forest Rangers had just left the site of a small fire the Rangers and the Rocky Point Fire Department had doused. A passing motorist waved the captain down and advised him of a fire just off Rocky Point Road. Conklin believed she was referring to the fire he had just left but returned to investigate. As he approached the area of the previous fire, another blaze was visible nearby. Conklin radioed Ranger Keith Parr, who was still at the scene of the last fire. Parr reported the second fire was near him, and Conklin notified Suffolk County Command Center to have the Rocky Point Fire Department respond for another fire.

Conklin and Parr were joined by Assistant Chief Edward Bie, and the three began to size-up the fire. Within minutes the intensity of the flames, driven by a 20 mph wind, had increased dramatically. The gusting wind was pushing the fire in a northeasterly direction. Calls were sent out for more help and a command post was set up on Rocky Point Road. Units from the Ridge and Middle Island fire departments soon joined the Rangers and Rocky Point firefighters. The battle was on.

A report was received at about 4 P.M. that flames had burned over a Ridge "Stumpjumper" (see story on page 42). Two injured firefighters were medivaced to Stony Brook Medical Center. Conklin called Albany and requested additional rangers. By 5 P.M., 12 brush trucks and numerous Class A pumpers were at work. Gusting winds and the very nature of the fire made fighting the blaze difficult. A variety of tactics, including "defense-fogging on the fire side and foaming the cold side" were used. Bulldozers were brought in from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to cut a line and attempt to control the north perimeter. The firefighters worked on as the sun set and the woods took on the eerie glow of fire light.

By midnight, the bulldozer and firefighting teams were finally able to cut off the flames on the north side. On the east flank, brush units bounced through the trees and made stands against the running fire and extinguished hot spots as needed. By this time the fire had burned through an estimated "couple of hundred acres." At 3:30 A.M., it appeared that the fire was contained and some of the more distant mutual aid fire units and the DEC crews were released. Local firefighters and park rangers operated throughout the night.

The morning fire size-up and weather reports did not look promising. More of the same was expected: 80 degree temperatures, winds variable at 10-15 mph and no rain in sight. By 8 A.M., the Rocky Point chiefs and the rangers conferred and with flare-ups anticipated mutual aid fire departments were again called in. The DEC closed all state land under its jurisdiction and a DEC helicopter with water dropping capabilities was heading towards the fire area.

At 9:50 A.M., a flare-up off the bike trail began to burn out of control. The helicopter made numerous drops but could not reload with water fast enough. Additional mutual aid units were called as the fire intensified again. Whiskey Road was closed to all traffic as the flames moved in. At 10:45, the fire jumped Whiskey Road, burning over two pumpers.

It is decided to evacuate the homes along Wading River Hollow Road, Ridge Road, Whiskey Road, Wood Lot Road and the Leisure Village development (a retirement community). Fire companies prepared to make a stand at Route 25, Middle Country Road, which is at the leading edge of the fire.

A new plan of helicopter attack was developed using a 1,000-gallon drop tank that is filled by tankers and hydrants. The travel and turnaround time for the flights is greatly reduced and the water drops become more effective. At about 1 P.M., the fire slowed as the vegetation in its path changed. Firefighters were able to work in closer for a more direct attack. Five hours later, the fire was contained and the mop-up operations were started.

The next morning (Wednesday, Aug. 23), the fire was still burning but not with the intensity of the previous two days. New York Governor George Pataki and other state officials arrived and assessed the scene. Rangers and firefighters continue working to douse the remaining hot spots until Thursday.

On Thursday, an aerial surveillance was made. From the helicopter, the Rocky Point fire was looking good. To the south, however, another large column of smoke could be seen 15 to 20 miles to the southeast near Southampton. The firefighting on Long Island was far from over.

The Sunrise Fire

At 1:30 P.M. on Aug. 24, an alarm was received for a fire adjacent to the grounds of Suffolk Community College. Eastport Assistant Chief Kurt Massey was in his car and responding toward the location before the tones were on the air. A column of smoke was visible as the chief approached the scene.

Knowing the area and the conditions Massey anticipated a problem and immediately called for reinforcements, including eight brush trucks, four pumpers and two tankers even before he arrived at the scene.

The 10-year veteran pulled around the curving road that circles the college grounds and was confronted with the start of a blaze that would reach amazing proportions. The fire was already a 40- to 50-foot-wide, 100-foot-long wall of flames. Massey said it looked like "a horizontal tornado." The ground cover was burning and it was up in the treetops and moving. Massey recalled thinking, "Our only chance to stop it was on Speonk Riverhead Road."

Massey was soon joined by chiefs from Westhampton, Riverhead and Flanders fire departments. These men are experienced hands at battling local brush fires but the weather was going to make things worse than anyone had ever seen before.

Within 15 minutes, the fire had already burned its way through more than 1,000 feet of pines and was gaining in intensity. Flames roared toward Speonk Riverhead Road, where the first of what would be many stands was started. Arriving units prepared themselves as the wall of fire moved toward them.

A Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) helicopter making a pass notified the Suffolk County Fire Band that the fire department should move its trucks because they were in the path of the fire. The fireground responded, "Thank you, that's where we're supposed to be."

It was approximately 2:30 P.M. when the flames moved in, then passed over and around the trucks on Speonk Riverhead Road and headed east-southeast towards Sunrise Highway. Companies were dispatched to that location and the command post was relocated to a Sunrise Highway overpass.

The wind was causing more problems than just driving the flames. Embers were being carried as far as a half mile and, according to forestry officials, were landing with an 80 percent chance of ignition directly because of the drought then in its 19th day, a local record. Area firefighters had seen fire volume and spread of similar proportions but not under such conditions.

A number of fire units were attempting to get into position and battle the flames as they reached Sunrise Highway. The road itself is four lanes wide at this point but with its wide shoulders and median it was about 10 lanes wide; it was hoped it would make a good fire break. Approximately 12 units were engaged holding back the fire but embers had drifted over the hose streams and fires started behind the firefighters on the other side of the highway. This area of fire was soon blazing out of control.

The flames in this fire, as in the Rocky Point blaze, were sweeping through an area called the Pine Barrens. The 4,100-acre area is ecologically important for Long Island due to the presence of a large aquifer. Home to deer, raccoons, red foxes and other wildlife, the Pine Barrens gets its name from its pine trees. The most indicative of the pines is the pitch pine. This coniferous tree has a peculiar set of adaptations to fire-prone areas. It has a thick insulating bark and can lose all or part of its needles and branchlets in a fire and still refoliate itself. Another type, the pygmy pine, has seed-bearing pine cones that are normally sealed and open only in the heat of a fire.

State forest rangers and local fire companies joined together and a combination of firefighting tactics was put into play. A standard wildfire fighting strategy called "anchor and flank" was used. In this strategy, firefighters locate an anchor point near where the fire starts and with the wind at their backs they begin to clear fire lines in both directions in an attempt to flank the fire. Bulldozers, Stumpjumpers and hand tools are employed as the crews race the flames and the shifting winds. Local techniques using the Stumpjumpers also prove effective.

As the fire continued to grow and spread the commitment to battle it also grew. Mutual aid fire departments arrived in ever greater numbers. Forest rangers were reassigned from the Rocky Point fire and other forest ranger personnel, both state and federal, were notified and began to mobilize. When the fire jumped the highway, the mutual aid commitment from western Suffolk departments was increased dramatically.

Another attempted stand was made at Stewart Avenue at about 5:30 P.M. but flames soon were behind the firefighters at this point and was off burning through the tinder dry woods. A successful stand was made at around 6:30 at Station Road. Fire did manage to get behind the companies but was knocked down quickly.

While the firefighters battled the blaze, their families and friends watched live TV coverage of the fire. Moving walls of fire rolling through the tree line flashed in brilliant color across TV screens in the New York metropolitan area. The scenes, though scary and awesome in themselves, did not show the many close calls the fire crews faced as the winds shifted and whipped flames back on the firefighters and their trucks.

The Stumpjumpers rescued each other on several occasions as a stalled truck called for help and another rig rolled in to help. This would happen time and again as aggressive crews plowed their way through the small trees to take up a position only to have the wind switch directions and send the fire toward them.

The rugged terrain, the dense smoke and the need to work at night took their toll on the firefighters and their equipment. Stumpjumpers began limping back, as crews hoped for repairs and a quick turnaround back to the fire lines. A long string of flashing lights lined up at the staging area near the Sunrise Highway command post. With additional units constantly arriving, and the units at work changing positions or returning for reassignment, control was becoming more and more difficult.

It was also becoming clear that the small army of firefighters and firefighting apparatus that was steadily growing would have to be refueled, fed and rested. The hangars at nearby Gabreski Airport became the central medical, rest and refreshment areas. Local merchants and citizens joined the various governmental agencies and provided whatever the exhausted firefighters and their rigs needed.

On Tuesday night, 200-foot flames lit the smoke-filled sky. Class A pumpers were dispatched to stand by at homes in the path of the flames, as Stumpjumpers bounced from one hot spot to another. Ground crews were also busy digging, cutting and plowing fire breaks trying to gain some advantage on the growing fire. Colonel Edward Jacoby, superintendent of the state forest rangers, flew in on Thursday night and assumed command at the height of the fire.

The flexibility of the incident command system was an invaluable tool in the overall command and control of this operation. While there were some radio problems, and delays in assigning and effectively utilizing all of the incoming units, for the most part things went well. David Fischler, the chief fire marshal of Suffolk County, recalled, "I think things went pretty smoothly. A strong incident command system helped make it manageable."

The fire's unexpected jump over Sunrise Highway and rapid movement toward homes and other buildings produced what is undoubtedly one of the largest mutual aid calls in the history of New York State. One hundred seventy-eight fire departments from Nassau and Suffolk counties sent apparatus and manpower to the scene, where they joined New York State forest rangers and firefighters from the National Guard. In addition, for the first time in its history the New York City Fire Department sent fire companies to Suffolk County. Ten engines, two battalion chiefs and the Field Communications Unit responded.

As the fire moved toward the homes and other buildings, it complicated the operation further. "We have to be a little more aggressive in the attack because of the urban interface," Fischler said.

Unlike many of the wildfires that are fought on western national park lands, the blaze challenging the Long Island firefighters was moving directly toward a populated area with numerous dangerous and expensive exposures. In the area adjacent to the where the fire would eventually spread were an airport, a U.S. Coast Guard housing subdivision with 161 homes, the Suffolk County Police Academy, a lumberyard (with 5,000 pounds of arsenic used in wood treatment), a nursing home, a propane distribution center with 30,000 pounds of product and the town of Westhampton itself. More than 400 people were evacuated from the path of the fire and taken to shelters. They waited quietly to see if the firefighters, now swelled to more than 2,000, could stop the flames and save their homes.

There was now more than a half mile of fire over 150 feet in the air being driven at the whim of the wind. With the fire reaching these mammoth proportions government officials again began to arrive to lend their support and to survey matters first hand. On Friday, Pataki joined Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney at the fireground and called for the federal government to supply C-130 planes, each capable of dropping 4,000 gallons an hour. On Friday evening, they surveyed the fire area from a helicopter.

By late Friday night, the overall control of the operation was transferred to Warren DuBois of the U.S. Forest Service. Federal help arrived in the form of two firefighting companies from Ohio and Maryland, a meteorologist, radio equipment, five single-engine air tankers from New Jersey, two helicopters from Maine and five New York National Guard choppers. But the C-130s were nowhere to be seen and this was causing the officials, who would soon include U.S. Senator Alphonse D'Amato, to debate the cause and blame for the delay.

One of the "hits" on the fireground was the work of the "Ag-Cats" from New Jersey. These small, double-winged planes were making accurate and timely drops on key areas of the fire. Ex-Captain Tim Kelly of the Sayville Fire Department recalled how his and a few other units were ready to make a stand as a large fire head was bearing down on their position. With lines stretched and charged they waited for a tough fight. Suddenly, as the flames were only yards away, an Ag-Cat swooped down.

"He made a drop and just knocked the fire head right down," said Kelly.

One area in the airport was used as a Stumpjumper repair depot. Parts were taken from other damaged rigs, provided by the government or sent over by the Schunk family, which owns the company that makes the Stumpjumpers. The Schunks both worked the fire and kept their shops open to help with repairs. "We repaired over 28 trucks during a two- day period," said Allan Schunk.

A hangar in the airport became a rehabilitation center. Exhausted firefighters fell onto cots and stole a few hours of sleep. Local business owners joined with the American Red Cross and other groups to provide for the needs of the firefighters and the evacuees who were sent to area schools. The Red Cross had served more than 7,500 meals by Saturday afternoon. Medical personnel treated the injured and checked the blood pressure of rested and fed firefighters before they returned to the battle. A team from the American Massage Therapists Association arrived at the hangar and highly trained hands relieved tired, strained muscles.

Even the firefighters who had experience fighting blazes of this type were surprised by its severity and speed. Another factor few had experienced was the fire's sound the combination of roaring, crackling and air movement made the fire at times deafening.

By Saturday, firefighters had gained the upper hand on the blaze and weary firefighters were joined by the five 20-member crews of the famed "Hot Shots," who were flown in from the West. As things began to calm down, residents were allowed to return to their homes and mop-up operations began. Weary fire units were being released and roads closed since the start of the fire were being opened.

Many hours of hard work lay ahead but with the completion of an 11-mile fire break surrounding the fire area, incident commander DuBois said the fire was "100 percent contained." Work stopped at 6 P.M. but crews stood by the smoldering remains of the 5,500 acres in case of flare-ups.

Officials began to take a tally of the destruction. Only one house was lost; 12 other structures were damaged. With the types of exposures faced, it is a testament to those who battled the flames that the losses were so low.

For the first time in history, there was a federal fire declaration for New York State. During the two-week period, over 3,000 firefighters operated. Forty-nine firefighters were taken to hospitals with various injuries. All but one were treated and released. One firefighter was operated on for a severely broken arm.

Suffolk County firefighters have seen their share of fire over the years, but in Fischler's words, "We never thought we'd see the day when we would ask for one pumper from each department in Nassau County. Not to mention the 10 from New York City."