Another New York, New Jersey Feud: Wildfires

In the wake of California’s devastating wildfires, New Jersey’s governor is worried neighboring New York is unprepared to fight fires along their shared border.

Gov. Phil Murphy used a Thursday press conference on wildfire readiness to say New York’s lack of a state fire service is “beyond belief.”

The comments come just three months after firefighters from both states struggled to contain a 5,000-acre blaze along their forested border in the northern part of New Jersey. The November fire, which started near the state border, burned for two weeks before it was contained.

Murphy, a Democrat, called his state’s own 60-person statewide Forest Fire Service a “gem” and lambasted New York for not having a similar agency.

“We were battling some serious fires on the New York state border and it was, fair to say, incredibly challenging because they don't have what we have,” he said. “You think that's crazy? New York's got almost 20 million people — they don't have a state forest fire service and that made that really hard and I would argue it took longer to get that under control because of that than it otherwise should have.”

The border fire, known as the Jennings Creek Fire, was the largest in New York since 2008, prompted evacuations and killed one New York state park employee battling it.

In New York, the state Department Environmental Conservation coordinates wildfire responses on state lands but largely relies on assistance from local fire departments to fight the fires. All of the state’s roughly 150 forest rangers are trained to respond to wildfires, but they have many other responsibilities — from rescuing hikers to patrolling state lands — over 6 million acres.

Murphy’s comments were remarkably pointed given the usual emphasis states have on cooperation during emergencies. He and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Democrat, have a generally good relationship but it’s been fractured by interstate squabbles over policing their shared waterfront and new tolls on New Jersey drivers.

On Thursday afternoon, spokespeople for both governors tried to keep the wildfire remarks from becoming a major spat, with both offices praising the other state’s firefighters’ partnership and coordination.

“From the start of the fire, our administration launched a coordinated response with every available resource to help our first responders contain the fire, and this could not be possible without working in close coordination with our partners in New Jersey,” said Paul DeMichele, spokesperson for Hochul. “We are thankful for our partnership with New Jersey and we will always work together whenever a fire or other natural disaster threatens communities in our states."

Murphy spokesperson Stella Porter said the governor “is grateful for the partnership and communication between New Jersey and New York when a fire threatens communities in both states, as we saw during the Jennings Creek Wildfire.”

The exact cause of that fire is still under investigation — including which side of the border it started on, according to New York DEC.

The Empire State is far larger than New Jersey, noted New York Democratic Sen. Pete Harckham, who represents Westchester County. While a state fire service might make sense in a small geographic area with different topography, Harckham said it might not be the best approach in New York. Still, the lawmaker said New York should study what’s needed to respond to a growing risk of wildfires driven by climate change.

“I usually don’t pay any attention to what Phil Murphy says,” Harckham said. “It’s not like we don’t have capabilities and protocols in place — the fire services do. The question is, given climate change, do we have enough? And I think the answer is no.”

California — which is about three times larger than New York — has a state fire service.

“We just don’t in one budget say we’re going to stand up a statewide fire service,” Harckham said. “We need to really have a statewide strategy to respond to the new landscape.”

The union representing DEC’s forest rangers and law enforcement officers has been critical of low staffing levels they say hamper the state’s response efforts. The department needs to prioritize sending forest rangers to assist with out-of-state wildfire response to gain the experience necessary to respond to fires in New York, a union official said months before the Jennings Creek fire.

“We have members that are wildfire qualified that could go but were denied because of short staffing,” said Matt Krug, an environmental conservation officer and union representative.

In addition to more than 150 forest ranger personnel trained to fight wildfires, more than 100 other DEC staff have that training, according to the department. Forest rangers also do prescribed burns to reduce the risk of fires on public lands. The department also enforces burn restrictions and runs education efforts.

On large wildfires, multiple New York agencies assist in the response led by forest rangers and the state can request assistance via multistate and federal agreements.

Mayor Michele Dale of West Milford, a New Jersey town near the border fire, said it was very difficult for firefighters to work together at first “because the way they fight fires is not the way New Jersey approaches a wildfire.”

During a call as the fire raged, Dale urged Murphy to work something out so New Jersey could help New York. “I said, ‘Look, we kind of need to take control of this because we cannot keep waiting for New York resources,’” Dale recalled in an interview.

Murphy’s appearance at a roundtable in Burlington County to talk about wildfires might seem unusual given major winter storms that have just swept through the state and other things going on in the world. But the governor said two things were on his mind: last year was the driest fall on record in the state and the Los Angeles fires.

“You can’t answer something with nothing,” he said.

Murphy’s focus on New York represents something of a shift in Garden State officials’ wildfire worries. Fires are more common in the state’s more rural south. But the border fire last fall was in the north, closer to major population centers.

While New Jersey’s most famous borders with New York are waterways — New York Harbor and the Hudson River the states also share a 50-mile land border, much of which is forested. It’s part of that area that burned last fall.