Firefighters on Long Island were battling a wildfire on Sunday, one of several that forced the closure of sections of a highway in Suffolk County and prompted dozens of agencies to respond.
Four separate blazes erupted in the county on Saturday afternoon. By the evening, three had been extinguished and the fourth, in the Westhampton area, was 50 percent contained, Rudy Sunderman, the Suffolk County fire coordinator, said at a news conference on Saturday evening.
Two structures had been burned and one firefighter had been hospitalized with second-degree burns to the face, Ed Romaine, the Suffolk County executive, said at the news conference.
“We maximized our firefighting capabilities to stop this fire from spreading and then we tried to contain it,” Mr. Romaine said. “But it is not under control as I speak.”
Mr. Romaine added that he did not expect the Westhampton fire to be fully out until Sunday because there were high winds in the forecast.
Fire danger risk remained high on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley on Sunday, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Although the humidity was forecast to be slightly higher than it had been on Saturday, wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour were expected by the afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
Mr. Romaine said in a statement earlier that more than 80 agencies were involved in fighting three fires in eastern Long Island.
An HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter from the 106th Rescue Wing and three New York Army National Guard helicopters based in Ronkonkoma were helping in the response, the New York National Guard said in a news release.
Fire trucks and crews from the Francis S. Gabreski Air National Guard Base in Westhampton Beach were also deployed. The base was evacuated as a precautionary measure, the National Guard said.
Bill Dalton, a former chief of the Westhampton Beach Fire Department who is helping coordinate his department’s response, said several departments have deployed brush trucks, which are smaller fire trucks designed to fight wildfires.
Drones were mobilized to get a bird’s-eye view of the fires, which stretched in a seven-mile radius in the area around Westhampton and Eastport on the South Shore.
“We have a lot of assets on the ground, lot of communication as to where the hot spots are,” he said. “They’re popping up all over.”
The New York State Police said on Saturday that all lanes of the Sunrise Highway were closed eastbound between Exit 62 and Exit 64. County Road 31 southbound was also closed, according to the Southampton Police Department.
By early Sunday morning, both roads had reopened, according to data from the state’s Department of Transportation.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said the fires were in the Pine Barrens, a 105,000-acre nature park. The governor declared a state of emergency on Saturday afternoon, said a spokesman, Avi Small.
“We are in close communication with local partners on Long Island to coordinate assistance and make sure they have the resources they need to protect their communities,” Ms. Hochul said on social media.
The National Weather Service had warned earlier on social media that low humidity and northwest winds of 30 to 35 m.p.h. would create an “elevated risk for fire spread.”
On Saturday the forecast materialized.
“We have gusty north-to-northwest winds, and they’re making it difficult to contain any fires that develop,” Jay Engle, a meteorologist with the Weather Service, said of conditions on Long Island on Saturday.
The fires dominated conversations on Saturday at the Quogue East Pub. Kieran Marsicovetere, 34, of East Quogue, said he saw heavy smoke and “a few ashes falling from the sky” early in the afternoon.
The situation did not appear to be nearly as dire as brush fires that burned thousands of acres in the same area in 1995, he said. Still, he said, he was “immediately concerned.”
“It’s a scary situation, especially with the wildfires in the Carolinas and California,” he said. “The Pine Barrens are always a concerning spot.”
On Montauk Highway in Westhampton, police vehicles blocked roads leading to the Francis S. Gabreski Airport.
Salvatore Fracapane, 19, watched live television coverage of the fires at his job at a convenience store nearby. He said he saw smoke and smelled “burning wood chips” around 1 p.m., then saw “fire trucks from everywhere” rushing to the scene.
“I thought it was serious, seeing all those fire trucks out here,” he said.
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