For years, wildfires across the American West have served as an urgent reminder of the threat posed by extreme weather, which is often made worse by climate change.

But over the last few weeks, nearly 3,000 miles across the country, fires have engulfed parts of the Hudson Valley, stretching between New York and New Jersey, sending smoke into New York City, reducing air quality,

and turning the skyline, a hazy gray. Often driven by high winds, the nearly 5,000-acre Jennings

Creek fire has gained ground because of an unusually severe drought that's occurring on the

East Coast. Hillary Howard is a climate change reporter for the New York Times.

Hillary, thank you so much for being here.

I mentioned how this region is in the middle of an awful drought,

but how did this fire initially start and how did it get so bad?

We don't know how the fire initially started because it is in an area that's quite rugged and mountainous.

And firefighters have simply been trying to contain the blaze over the past week so that it doesn't spread further.

They're not able to get into the source of it because it's so impossible, but the cause is still

under investigation.

As many people know, this is not a region that is used to wildfires.

Do they have the fire crews and the personnel to attack this as needed?

From what I understand, it's all hands on deck.

Volunteer firefighters are joining up with state professionals, emergency workers, marine crews

have filled in, but it's taking everyone with any sort of training at this point to help with

these fires. I know that this is also a big agricultural area, and some of my colleagues recently

talked with a farmer down there, man named

Rocky Hazelman, who's a farmer in West Milford, New Jersey. Here's what he had to say about just how

dry it is. So we've seen more than 40 days without real meaningful rain. We had one just a week ago,

which kind of gave us a little bit of hope, but nothing since then. The 40 days is dried out both reservoirs, our local pond, and our underground storage tanks,

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