2 People Charged With Starting Some of Northeast’s Wildfires

Two people have been charged with starting some of the wildfires blazing through the Northeast amid dry weather conditions.
Police in the Philadelphia suburb of Evesham Township said late Wednesday that they charged a minor with deliberately setting a fire on October 30 that burned less than a tenth of a square mile.
The minor was arrested on November 7 and sent to a juvenile detention center.
On Long Island in New York, Jonathan Quiles, a 20-year-old Medford volunteer firefighter, allegedly set a fire in a wooded area on Tuesday, damaging a parked car, the Suffolk County Police Department said Wednesday.
The volunteer firefighter was arrested and was set to be arraigned Wednesday on charges of arson and reckless endangerment.
Firefighters continue to try to contain a wildfire that has burned roughly 7.8 square miles of woodland on the New Jersey-New York border.
Greg McLaughlin, an administrator with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, said rugged hill terrain and few road access points have challenged crews fighting the fire.
Both states have utilized water-dropping helicopters with New York firefighters taking advantage of changing winds Wednesday by starting a controlled line of fires to burn away underbrush and leaves that could be used as fuel.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has declared a drought warning, asking residents to conserve water by doing things like taking shorter showers, turning off the faucet while brushing their teeth and waiting until their dishwashers are full to run it.
“Please take this seriously,” Murphy said. “We have a very dry winter ahead of us.”
Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, issued a drought watch on November 2, urging locals to conserve water by, for example, sweeping sidewalks instead of hosing them down.
On Tuesday, Massachusetts declared a drought after weeks of decreased rainfall.
A Connecticut volunteer firefighter by the name of Robert Sharkevich Sr. died last month while fighting a brush fire that burned through the town of Berlin and the city of Meriden. The 66-year-old died in a utility vehicle accident in the woods.
Meanwhile, Dariel Vasquez, an 18-year-old New York state parks employee, died last weekend when a tree fell on him while assisting firefighters battling the wildfire on the New York-New Jersey border.
The National Park Service (NPS) says that almost 85 percent of wildfires in the U.S. are caused by humans, whether it be unattended campfires, the burning of debris, equipment use and malfunctions, negligently discarded cigarette buds or intentional acts of arson.
While climate change doesn’t necessarily cause wildfires, it does exacerbate the hot, dry conditions that contribute to the frequency and severity of the fires.
“Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last two decades,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.