West Milford fire among several wildfires burning in northern New Jersey
CBSNOV 11 2024
Wildfares are raging on the east and west coasts of the US, including 21K acres (31 sq miles) of land burned from the Mountain Fire in Ventura County, Calif., and 3K acres (4.6 sq miles) of land from the Jennings Creek Wildfire in Passaic County, New Jersey.
Alongside the Jennings Creek Fire, which is currently 10% contained, fires are also burning in New Jersey, Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, with over 100 brush fires in NYC this month.
The New Jersey fire was blown into New York's Orange County, which led to air quality advisors put in place in NYC and the Hudson Valley. An 18-year-old New York park employee was killed after a tree fell on him while he was clearing brush to fight a fire.
The global warming-driven rise in wildfires is creating a cycle of disaster. First, carbon emissions lead to hotter and dryer climates, which then leads to larger fires across the country, and those fires release more carbon into the atmosphere. Not only are they burning down millions of acres of coastal land, but they're emitting more amounts of toxic smoke that Americans are forced to breath in. Carbon emissions have to be reduced if we want to end this cycle of destruction.