Wednesday, the
#FDNY operated at a 3-alarm brush fire in Inwood Hill Park.
“We've been here about four hours fighting a third alarm brush fire. These are very treacherous conditions for our firefighters tonight. We'll be here all night and into tomorrow morning. There are hot spots still that we're dealing with up on the hill. Thankfully, there are no injuries to report. Very grateful to the Parks department, to Emergency Management and all of our partners throughout city government who are helping FDNY deal with an unusual amount of fires in our parks in the last few weeks,” said Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker.
“We have a very, very large, extensive brush fire, approximately 400 by 400. We had many challenges here due to the terrain, the elevation, and we had water issues as well. There aren't fire hydrants in the middle of a forest, so we had a draft from the Harlem River. We had to stretch hose lines approximately 150 feet or more up a hill to extinguish multiple fires. We had multiple trees that collapsed and this operation was extremely dangerous for our members. We used our drones to enhance the safety and identify the hot spots with the drones. We did go to a third alarm assignment. It's labor intensive. We used about 140 firefighters and EMS personnel at this fire,” said Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods.