Sunday 09 / March / 2025
Washington: Fast-moving wildfires fanned by high winds have engulfed New York's Long Island, prompting the closure of a major highway and evacuation of a military base in the area.
The fires are raging in and around the Pine Barrens area east of New York City. According to officials, three of the four blazes were fully contained, while the fire in Westhampton was 50% contained.
The fires led to the shutting down of a stretch of Sunrise Highway that runs between Brooklyn to Montauk Point State Park on Long Island, the New York Department of Transportation said.
The Long Island wildfires come more than two months after the Southern California fires, the most destructive in recent years, killed 29 people and burnt nearly 60,000 acres of land.
In 1995, the Sunrise Fire burned through more than 5,000 acres of the Pine Barrens nature preserve and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate from their homes.
