Firefighters battled flareups Friday at Inwood Hill Park days after a brush fire decimated four acres of land.
There’s also a citywide threat of more to come.
What You Need To Know
- The city will be under a red flag warning Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- It indicates the bone-dry conditions are ideal for fires starting and quickly growing
- Parks and Recreation Committee Chair Councilmember Shekar Krishnan is calling for more funding for the Parks Department. Its budget was slashed by $55 million for the upcoming year
“I was devastated, and I just started crying because it’s a sacred place,” Inwood resident Julia Barclay-Morton said.
Collapsed trees in the forest have stood for centuries watching the transformation of the city.
Inwood Hill Park contains the last natural forest and salt marsh in Manhattan.
It’s now the site of one of more than 230 brush fires across the city in a two-week span.
“The thought that this is going to continue, and perhaps maybe a more permanent fact of life in New York, is incredibly — it’s depressing and distressing,” Inwood resident Bernadette O’Donnell said.
The city will be under a red flag warning Saturday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It indicates the bone-dry conditions are ideal for fires starting and quickly growing.
“We need to move from a place of reaction to a place of prevention,” Parks and Recreation Committee Chair Councilmember Shekar Krishnan said.
Krishnan is calling for more funding for the Parks Department. The budget was slashed by $55 million for the upcoming year.
“The only way the Parks Department is going to prevent these fires is to strengthen and fortify our parks and trees, but they need the funds and the resources to do so,” Krishnan said.
The cause of the Inwood Hill Park fire remains under investigation, according to officials.