Because of the dry conditions and high winds, the department has launched its first-ever brush fire task force.
This comes just 11 days after a fire ignited in the middle of Prospect Park in Brooklyn and six days after another fire torched Inwood Hill Park.
"The one in Prospect Park was hard for us to get to uphill. It was a very long stretch of the hose line-wise," FDNY Chief Fire Marshall Daniel Flynn said.
Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker moved immediately to expand the existing brush fire unit to a larger task force to fight on foot and in 4-wheel drive water trucks. The firefighters driving are directed where to go by drones.
"Before we had the capability of thermal with the drones, we were working off just what we could see on the ground," Lt. Bill Pitta of the FDNY Drone Unit said.
Drone crews tell firefighters on the ground over the radio exactly where each fire is and where it's going.
"We're out there with a proactive approach to these fires," Flynn said.
Over 18 dry days, firefighters have seen 300 brush fires.
In a normal year, they said they see half of that number.
"We're going out there, trying to find areas that present a danger and be at the scene where we've had these fires regularly. This area here in Van Cortland Park has had many many brushfires." Flynn said.
When the fires started to kick up, the FDNY reached out to National brush and wildfire experts.
On uneven terrain, giant firetrucks carrying 500 gallons of water are little help.
The smaller trucks and drones are the key.
The drones scramble overhead in less than 2 minutes.
"We can actually see them working on the ground and say go 100 feet in and make a right" Pitta said.
Firefighters use these smaller trucks when there are no roads or passageways. The mobile units are narrow and can go over any kind of terrain or marshland to fight these fires.
There were 8 of these trucks, and now it is up to 20 trucks. They also have about 10 times as many firefighters working in this new task force.
And the danger is not just about the flames.
"Trees fall in our members we are aware of that and we try to stay out of that immediate area where the fire is occurring," Flynn said.
All of these tools are also helpful in fire investigations after the fact, but the biggest help will be the rain on the way.
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