As temperatures soared into the 80s, breaking records across the region, gusts drove flames across dried-out vegetation and sparked widespread brush fires on Tuesday, with areas along the New Jersey Turnpike in Hudson and Bergen Counties engulfed.
“Northeast New Jersey really seems to be the hot spot right now,†Joe Picca, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said at 4:30 p.m.
Conditions for fire were perfect, Mr. Picca said, with winds up to 35 miles an hour recorded in New York City and Newark in late morning and a near-complete lack of April showers so far. No measurable rainfall has been recorded in New York City since April 1, when eight hundredths of an inch fell.
The high temperature at Kennedy International Airport was 83 degrees, a full 10 degrees above the record for April 9, Mr. Picca said. The mercury hit 85 in Newark, also a record. In Central Park, the high of 82 degrees fell short of the record.
A Kearny, N.J., fire official said that a “very large area†along the turnpike had burned but that it was “pretty much under control†shortly before 5 p.m. Another fire, near the Vince Lombardi Service Area at the turnpike’s northern end, was also close to under control at 5 p.m., said a New Jersey Turnpike Authority official.
In New York City, firefighters battled brush fires at a freight yard in Glendale, Queens, and in Willowbrook and Midland Beach in Staten Island, fire officials said.
The scanner-transcription service Breaking News Network also reported brush fires in Island Park, Chester and Fallsburg, N.Y.; and Mount Olive, Clinton, Howell, Hasbrouck Heights, Jefferson and Columbia, N.J.
