Cover photo: Smoke seen in Manorville on Saturday (Credit – Office of Suffolk County Executive Romaine)
Suffolk County received a rare, yet potentially disastrous, development over the weekend: brush fires in southern Brookhaven and Southampton towns that sent smoke high enough in the air to be seen from across the Long Island Sound.
The fires scorched hundreds of acres in the Pine Barrens, shut down service on Sunrise Highway east of the Moriches, and became especially serious on Saturday night when the flames jumped Old Riverhead Road (County Route 31) near Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton.
By Sunday afternoon, the fires had been mostly contained while fire and rescue monitored active hot spots that were somewhat contained mostly due to vegetation-scarce barriers formed by roadways.
Detectives currently suspect that the wildfires started on Saturday morning with a backyard ember produced to cook s’mores at a Center Moriches residence on Cozine Road, just off Sunrise Highway’s North Service Road. The resident could not get the fire started using pieces of cardboard as kindling due to the strong winds. The resident subsequently discovered that the fire had been lit, but the uncontained embers led to the backyard going up in flames. The Center Moriches Fire Department extinguished that fire around 10:30 that morning, but detectives believe that the strong winds from that fire started a blaze just south of Sunrise Highway.
The Cozine Fire – also referred to as the S’mores Fire – was unfortunately complemented by wind gusts from the northwest of up to forty miles per hour that day, gusts that continued into Sunday.
“That path makes perfect sense,” Suffolk County Police Department (SCPD) Commissioner Kevin Catalina told reporters in Mastic on Monday afternoon. Catalina added that a second fire was reported at 1:00p.m. on Chapman Boulevard in Manorville, just an eighth-mile southeast of the Cozine Fire. Around the same time, another fire was reported near CR-111 in Manorville.
“It was initially reported that there were four separate fires all reported at the same time. Those fires are in a direct line with the strong northwest winds that were blowing that day, and it is believed that the embers from each fire traveled and continuously started more fires,” said Catalina.
While the start of the brush fires are believed to have been accidental, the investigators are not ruling out arson.
“We want to interview every 911 caller. We want to run down every Crime Stoppers lead just to rule out every possibility,” said Catalina on Saturday night, joined by Sheriff Errol Toulon (D), Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni (D-North Haven), and Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore (D-West Hampton Dunes). “But we feel very, very strongly that this is an accidental fire that was started as a result of the initial Cozine Fire.”
Twenty-five detectives are investigating the cause of the fire. The full analysis includes drones and helicopters observing patterns from above, in addition to other leads being taken.
On Saturday, the flames had jumped CR-31 into Westhampton and Westhampton Beach. CR-31 is home to Gabreski Airport, which houses the 106th Rescue Wing, who were conveniently equipped and ready to fight the blazes from above. The fires were observed as heading east towards Quogue, while flames already ripped through the wooded areas of Center Moriches, East Moriches, Eastport, and parts of Manorville.
Suffolk County Fire, Rescue, and Emergency Services (FRES) Commissioner Rudy Sunderman said on Monday that 400 acres had been burned at that point, but “overall,” he said, the total is likely closer to 600 acres. Some small evacuation orders were issued, but no sweeping mandates were called. Additionally, FRES reports that two commercial structures were damaged, one at Gabreski Airport and the other on CR-31.
So far, only one serious injury has been reported, a firefighter who received second-degree burns to the face. He was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital for treatment on Saturday.
The Westhampton Beach Fire Department had two aviation units flying all day on Sunday, with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office sending fifty deputy sheriffs for protection.
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) announced that nearly ninety fire departments responded with apparatus, some as far west as Deer Park. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman (R-Atlantic Beach) also dedicated resources from eleven agencies to eastern Suffolk.
“We had five brush trucks and five engines from Nassau. We also had twenty ambulances on site, but we’re also backfilling ambulances throughout the county to make sure that we have coverage for the routine 911 calls,” Legislator Dominick Thorne (R-Patchogue), Chair of FRES Committee in the County Legislature, told The Messenger. “This is a standard pyramid-type response. When you drain resources, you bring more in and backfeed.”
Romaine also said he received “several” calls from Governor Kathy Hochul (D), who declared a state of emergency and an immediate burn ban for Downstate New York and parts of the Hudson Valley. The Governor also sent the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), State Forest Rangers, State Park Police, and State Police. He also thanked the Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA) – an public-benefit corporation independent from Suffolk County government – for their regular maintenance of hydrants and water mains that allowed these fires to be fought.
“Without the combined efforts of everyone involved, we would not have been able to stop this fire,” said Romaine.
“DEC was out there helping around the clock,” said Romaine on Monday afternoon, adding that he not only received a phone call from New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) offering help, but also the White House.
Despite the circumstances, Romaine, who served on the Pine Barrens Commission for twelve years, called the outpouring of support and aid in a time of crisis as “humbling.”
“This is so humbling because you’re watching the fires destroy our Pine Barrens; you care about them and watch them burn. And when people are calling to say, ‘how can I help?’ It made all the difference,” said Romaine.
Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico (R-Center Moriches) told The Messenger on Saturday evening that neither road closures within the town, nor vehicular or dwelling damages had been reported.
“…had these winds blown to the southwest, this fire would have ravaged through potentially Eastport, the business district, Manorville, a ton of homes in East Moriches, it could have been a very different fire had it gone into Brookhaven Town,” said Supervisor Panico in a statement on Monday.
Romaine and others were particularly concerned that if the fires jumped Sunrise Highway to head north, it could have been much more catastrophic, hearkening back to the Sunrise Fire of 1995, which burned for about one week and scorched 3,200 acres. The 1995 fire, believed to have been started by human activity, occurred under similarly dry conditions.
The Pine Barrens’ infestations from the Southern Pine Beetle are also considered to have been a catalyst in these flames, while not a cause themselves. The beetles are known for burrowing into pine trees – with a preference for Pitch Pine, a chief component of the Long Island Pine Barrens’ flora – creating S-shaped pathways while feeding on the tree’s cambium layer, the thin separator between the tree’s prominent nutrient highways. Popcorn-like nodules of resin are often left behind on the barks, a tell-tale sign of a pine beetle infestation.
Congressman Nick LaLota (R-Amityville), while thanking the first responders for their fantastic work in containing and extinguishing these fires, urged the U.S. Senate to pass the Fix Our Forests Act, a bipartisan bill passed March 6 to address the threat, among others, of the Southern Pine Beetle.
Once the trees cannot retrieve nutrients, they die, leaving behind dried bark and branches, which make for perfect kindling in wildfire conditions.
The pine beetles’ presence on Long Island is relatively new. While they’re endemic to the Southeastern U.S., warmer winters have brought them as far north as New Jersey and New York.
Thankfully, the Pitch Pine is known for its innate fire adaptation, offering a slight check on the power the beetles might have in setting the stage for a catastrophic blaze.
“I’m really pleased to report that [these fires] are 100% contained with a hard line. We’re remaining vigilant to ensure that we are continuing to do patrols, ensuring that we are addressing any hot spots as they come up,” said acting Commissioner for NYSDEC Amanda Lefton in Mastic on Monday, urging residents to comply with the burn bans.
While Long Island continues into a historic drought period, as does much of the U.S. at the time, take note of the burn bans in place for Long Island effective immediately. State bans take effect on March 16.
